“Antipodal Regional Shield 02/10 - semi-final
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This is about as exciting as a match can get. What looked like a real uphill struggle, with Cyrus-Havoc and his Oldboys having all the margins on their side, ended in a surprising victory for the Desolates.

Desolates started with the ball, but had a bad first half where they were single handedly stopped by the amazing Frank Stine, who with his blodging powers and seemingly unbeatable armor held back the greenskins advance. Paired with some very crucial RS failures by Kugash this looked like "one of those days", or as I like to call them, a regular day.

The first half fizzled to nothing, just as the wizard's fire ball and the mighty ST black orc Kagor was lost to a foul.

In the 2nd half the undead advanced and they still looked impossible to get to. Every time an opening appeared to get to the ball carrier, a zombie made a dodge or man to man wrestled an orc to the ground to cover it. Little could be done to stop them from scoring in T6.

But something happened after the TD. The greenskins got their act together and came out with a determined look in their eyes. The mighty Frank Stine was beaten to death on the LOS and the other flesh golem was smashed out (although regenerated) as the greenskins lunged forward.

With time running out things looked desperate, when suddenly a warewolf was distracted by the attractive prey of the goblin Bogit and left the rookie lineman Erork with just one blocker in the offensive zone. A black orc ran forward and smashed the defender to his knees, while Gokkur handed Erork the ball to run in it, with just seconds to spare of the regular match time.

In OT the Desolates had the moral advantage and one man more on the pitch, but the Oldboys started with the ball. Realizing that they couldn't win a bashing game at this state they bet all they had on a quick TD run right from the kick-off. The ball carrying warewolf was blitzed down though and Gokkur could recover the ball. The Desolates used their numerical advantage and cut individual players off while Gokkur and a few others made their way towards the end zone line.

But they weren't fast enough. Desperate blocks and dodges from the Oldboys held them in the game and a one on one blitz from the agile ghoul Hugh Silo brought Gokkur down, with the ghoul snatching up the ball. He didn't come far though, as he was blitzed down the following turn and Gokkur could yet again recover it.

With time running out it came to a dramatic ending. A warewolf threw himself in the way of Gokkur, but the orc dodged away with mobility more suited to an elf and could rush past the end zone line just before the OT clock ran.

A glorious comeback from the Desolates! They will now face the seemingly unbeatable GeneralMarauder in the final!

Thanks for the match, Cyrus. This was the best match of 2010 so far. Very exciting and fun!”