“A hard-fought game, where the TDs belie the effort the Zizziez had to make on the pitch.

I received the first kick-off, and immediately made a tactical mistake. Having got the ball directly to a saurus (bad kick), I didn't advance him up the field. This put less pressure on the LCR defense. The LCRs put pressure on my lower flank, but via judicious blocking and a blitz from my ballcarrier I could advance the ball quite a bit on the upper-center field, though at the cost of a slightly weaker cage, but most of his players were tied up now, and I could advance the cage unhindered and without risk to a TD in my turn 5.

With the Humans receiving, I was down three players - two KO and one BH, making it an uphill battle, but a lucky crowd invasion stunned three of the LCR players. However, they managed to free a catcher and the thrower with the ball, but the pass fumbled, and I could keep them from reclaiming the ball during the rest of the half.

The LCRs recevied again, and promptly got most of their players tied down in two groups. Instead, I could put a lot of pressure on the catcher with the ball and the escorting lineman, using two sauri and two skinks. After a short brawl, one of my skinks could claim the ball and run towards the LCR endzone. The blitzer giving chase tripped during a GFI. I could secure the ball and TD.

In the next kickoff the LCRs concentrated on beating up my scrimmage line (the Krox and two sauri), enabling me to put pressure on the thrower deep in the far corner. Again, he failed to secure the ball, and a failed block enabled me to blitz the human thrower. I tried to foul the thrower too, but was spotted and the skink had to leave the pitch. However, the saurus could pick up the ball on the second attempt, and score a TD.

I think I played decently, but not great. I was greatly helped by two common mistakes by Plink:

* not securing the ball with linemen and a blitzer. Instead, most of his players concentrated on beating mine up, far from the ball. Especially he Kroxigor got a lot of attention.

* using rerolls far too frequently, in one case even on a pushback. That meant that when the critical dodges, ball pickups et c came, they were all used up.”