“Coming off a pretty good game against the other Premiere CD team, Valar Quendi came into this one feeling like they had a good shot. if they could find a way to bottle up the behemoth Lord Kelvin, they might just pull off a win. They discounted the rookie bull, as he hadn't proven himself yet in this league.

First half started with Ice Nine receiving the kick, and right away getting it into the hands of the new bull. They tried to pushed their way downfield for a few turns, but didn't manage to get very far against the determined defense. After two elves were BH'd, the Quendi started feeling some pressure to make something happen before the half got too ugly. By turn 4 the guard sidestep lion had made his way through the line and found himself next to the ballcarrier. the rest of the team quickly manned up on the non-guard portion of the cage protecting him, and Talma made his move. Running up and leaping past the troll, he took the young bull by surprise and knocked him to the ground. Fortunately for Ice Nine, the ball bounced right between two of their guys, and they were able to quickly regain control. Lord Kelvin had a lino pinned to the sideline, ready to shove him into the crowd, but lapsed for a second and looked around to make sure his team had the ball. This was all the opportunity that Barahir needed, and he dodged past Kelvin and blitzed the ball free again. The elves were still not able to grab it and had to settle for putting a few TZ's on it again.

Ice Nine promptly knocked over all the elves in the vicinity, and the young bull St. Nick came over to reclaim the ball. Still a little rattled from the leaping blitz he was unable to pick up the ball and it came out the side of the crowd, giving the elves a good shot at it. The dragon warrior Ceredon ran down the sideline while the ag5 dragon swooped in, grabbed the ball and tossed it over to him. It was turn 7, and Ice Nine was about to give up the lead. Time for Lord Kelvin to assert himself, and show everyone why he gets the big money. He sprints over and puts a 2d block on the ball, but only manages to come up with a push. Still, a st5 standfirm sitting between the ballcarrier and the endzone is quite a daunting obstacle.

The Quendi move over some help, but only manage to get a 1d blitz on Kelvin. With no reroll left, we've got a 1 in 3 shot at a take down and going into half up 1-0. Lord Kelvin looks over at the blitzing dragon warrior, puts a hoof out and shoves him to the ground. Threat ended, we go into half still tied up 0-0.

Second half we really needed our KO's to get up and get back into the game. They stayed where they were though, and we could only field 7 elves against the full CD squad. Feeling that they needed to use up as much time as possible, the Quendi move their 3 catchers downfield and spend the first 3 turns of the second half dancing around the slower CD team. Unfortunately, the ag5 dragon with the ball didn't notice that Lord Kelvin had come up to midfield, and didn't move far enough back in response allowing Kelvin's subsequent blitz in t4 to put a TZ on the ball.

Feeling the pressure, the Quendi felt they had to make the attempt. With some dodging past Kelvin and 1 gfi, they could get off a long bomb attempt to a catcher waiting in the endzone. Lord Kelvin came up huge again, and didn't allow the ball to get past him. He stuck out a rear hoof and tripped up Turgon, who hit the ground hard enough to knock himself out. With so many of the remaining elves way downfield, this effectively ended the game. Our only hope was a failed pickup, but young St. Nick calmly grabbed the ball and settled in behind his mentor for protection. A few desperate blitz attempts didn't come up with results, and Nick strolled in for the win on turn 8.

Lord Kelvin was undoubtably the player of the match, although you wouldn't know it from his statline. No spp and only 6 blocks, but he was huge when he needed to be at the end of each half. The Quendi head home thinking of what could have been, and looking forward to the day when Kelvin retires!
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