“Handicaps were:

Morleys on 3 players (best Blitzer, and two other good players)
Smelling Salts (worked 1 from 1)
Knuckledusters
Virus (took out 1)
Duh Where Am I?

The Blood Falcons took the field again after an 18 month lay off. They were down two players still with what turned out to be very long term injuries (who would have thought MNG meant sit out for a year and a half?) and virus left them with 13 starters.

Apart from their star throwers, the Falcons lined up in offence a much weaker team than the Phasers and soon found themselves down to 10 players thanks to a Phasers foul.

They were put under pressure by the Phasers defence but able to get the score on the board before halfway into the first period.

Thanks to Morleys (4 failed from 6 now) the Falcons only had 10 players on defence (129 SPP Leap Guard Diving Tackle Sidestep Tackle Blitzer on the toilet).

The Phasers stalled out the half before running in the TD to level the scores at half time.

In the second half, the Blood Falcons pulled off a Perfect Defence, but then gave away a touchback on a short kick (so much for the Kick skill!)

The Phasers were stuck on the line of scrimmage and the Blood Falcons dove in. The Falcons DP got sent off, and he took the Phasers apothecary with him out to a drink in the tavern.

The Phasers then had an amazing run of blocking, causing two quick casualties. They caged the ball but some chainpushing by the Falcons got the ball carrier out for a two dice hit which didn't pay off.

The Falcons lost another player (KO) whilst the Phasers had a fouler sent off and it was 10 vs 7.

The Falcons applied what pressure they could until the Phasers used their superior numbers to cage the ball and stall and sending a Falcon out of bounds. 10 vs 6!

Phasers continued to stall and cage and the Falcons fouled a player only to be sent off again (2 from 3 without the eye) and it was 10 vs 5!

The Phasers then made a mistake, sending out 3 players to foul again and leaving their cage in a weaker position for the Falcons to get their DT Leaper next to the ball handler.

Phasers went for another foul and got sent off and it was now an even match (not) with 9 vs 5 as the Falcons used their apoth to prevent a MNG and keep a player on the pitch.

A one dice Leap Blitz sent the ball out of bounds and back up towards the line of scrimmage!

The Falcons recovered the ball but then fumbled a punt that would have sealed 1-1 result!

Phasers had a chance to win, but squandered it by using a Blitz to push a player out of bounds needlessly and leaving themselves with limited options to clear a path to the endzone and the match ended in a draw.
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Phew what a tough match. I had a lot of sidestep, but he had more Tacklers, DPs, MBlow and speed.

I managed to get tackle zones on the ball a few times and despite my rustiness, it was my opponent who accidently did a one dice block (and Powed hehe) instead of me.

Also managed to push his player out of a cage to two dice him but to no avail due to my lack of Tacklers (due to my lack of players!).

This should have been a 2-1 result, but Texan opened up his cage to foul and this let me get not only my star defender close enough to blitz the ball carrier, but also bring in another two players to negtate tackle zones. This let me steal the ball.

Then the T16 crowding using a Biitz move took away more options as he wasn't able to clear my two defenders in the way of him scoring (he could have used her to Blitz the defender next to his MA9 player from around the over side to prevent me sidestepping into another TZ, then he could have passed to the Blitzer and run in to the end zone to win).

I think I played pretty well (though slow) for all my time away and being so outnumbered and Texan let a win slip away with a couple of decisions (the opening the cage to foul and using his Blitz move to crowd instead of free up a scorer).

On the dice front, Texan had more luck with casualites and the fouling (I got sent off 2 from 3 with no ref on me, he got sent off 1 from 4 with the ref on him) but overall it wasn't that unbalanced.
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