“The semi-final of the 145 Rookie Cup saw an exciting game between two evenly matched teams.

Samurai Strike took on the Plumber’s Union. Although both human teams, the Plumber’s were packing a muscle-bound ogre named Joe! Coach Katana made sure to brief his team thoroughly about the dangers of standing too close to the big beast!

The Plumbers received the kick and pushed into the Samurai half. Thrower ‘Ed’ Carney held back, waiting for his receivers to find space on the crowded pitch. The focus of the fighting was in either wide zone. The extra blitzer of the Plumbers proved decisively in allowing them to put down their markers and get the edge in the battle of muscle. It didn’t help that Coach Katana didn’t realise one of the Plumber’s blitzers had Guard until mid-way through the second half!

Plumber’s out muscled the Samurai on the right wide zone and Carney ran forward for the throw to set up the breakaway TD. Unfortunately, Carney tripped over his own feet while going for it, and the ball bounced free! Samurai recovered quickly, cleared space, and Echigo seized the ball and ran deep into the PU half. The Plumber’s scrambled to cover, but no-one could reach the sprinting Samurai. Big Joe huffed and puffed after him and was able to put a tackle zone on the lineman, but could do nothing as Echigo dodged away to make the score 1 – 0.

The teams re-set for kick off and were interrupted by a violent pitch invasion that left several players face down! Plumbers looked to beat down the Samurai line of scrimmage, threw consecutive both down / skulls and suffered a turn over! With the ball unsecured in the backfield, Samurai burst through and Bizen raced for the ball. The Plumbers scrambled to cover, but the second block of their turn came up double skulls and a turnover resulted! Bizen was able to collect the ball and run in for a 2 – 0 score!

2 – 0 down after 6 turns, lesser coaches may have crumbled. But Uncle Dredd gave his Plumbers the mother of all team talks and set them out to get back into the match. This time the Plumber’s blitzers led the line of scrimmage blocking, knocking Buzen out cold! Carney the Thrower grabbed the ball and threw an inch perfect pass to the Plumber’s catcher, setting up a potential run in TD. Samurai rushed to break up the attack – Echigo was able to blitz the catcher, but despite a re-roll the best he could do with a 2 dice block was get a pushback. Unable to get the sack, Samurai placed tackles as best they could. It wasn’t good enough – skilful positional play from the Plumber’s cleared a space, allowing the thrower to run throw and handoff to a blitzer for the last turn TD. 2 – 1 !

Samurai received second half and looked to cage up while awaiting a passing opportunity. But the Plumber’s were in no mood to mess around. Plumber blitzer DeSalvo took down Samurai blitzer Seigan with a savage tackle that left the Samurai with a broken neck! Fortunately, the apothecary was on hand to pop a few joints back into place and get him ready to play again. The injury seemed to stun the Samurai, who became hesitant. Buzen, marking Big Joe, lost his nerve and tried to dodge away, but Joe glowered at him so intently that he lost his footing (despite a re-roll) and hit the turf stunned! This opened up a serious hole in the defence, allowing the Plumber’s to swarm over Nage the Thrower. Nage survived a 2DB (double pushback) and managed to dodge out of trouble – only for Coach Katana to realise he had forgot to order a passing play! Nage couldn’t put enough distance between himself and the swarming Plumber’s, who sacked him in short order. The ball bounced loose – a scramble followed – but the Plumber’s emerged with it, and ran in a TD to make it 2 – 2.

With four turns left there was everything to play for. The Samurai received, caged up, and went out wide. On the opposite side of the pitch, catcher Hashiru and comrades snuck into Plumber’s territory. The Plumber’s swarmed the cage, and with Big Joe and an extra blitzer, they had muscle to spare for breaking it up. But the Samurai had a cunning plan. Nage made a quick hand off to catcher Uketomeru, who used his speed to switch the play, rushing past the brawl and deep into Plumber’s territory. It was a desperation play and despite the best efforts of the Samurai, Uketomeru was left looking vulnerable. The Plumber’s spring into action, with a lineman hitting a two dice block to free up a blitzer, but the dice came up both skull / skull, re-roll, both down / both down!!

[This actual passage of play took about 6 minutes. There was so much pondering of the board, counting squares, weighing up options... as Dredd said ‘Not tense at all!’]

The turnover allowed Uketomeru to run to within two squares of the end zone. With the extra turn, the Samurai were able to clear up much of the backfield and deny the Plumber’s any opportunity of getting a blitz! A valiant Plumber’s catcher ran across to put a tackle zone on Uketomeru, but it was not enough – the Samurai ran in a last turn score to make it 3 – 2 and secure victory in a thrilling game.

Great match UncleDredd – rematch anytime you like!
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