“A New season, and we are playing the Blood Knights again for a season opener. At least this time, we do not have pouring rain... The Knights have added a fourth Vampire for this match, and their skills have improved, too. This does not bode well, as we lost the training match against them, and have not improved much since then. But this match Counts for something, and my Scavengers are always better when something important is at stake :)

As always, the oppositon has the fan advantage and wins the coin toss, but as last time, the Blood Knights choose to start With kicking. We open With Booster, Lightning and Bomber in the LOS, and Fraternizer to accompany Hollow Claws for a left side advance. Even before the kick has gone, the Scavengers fly off With a Quick Snap, and Bomber sends the thrall Jantot off the Field With his opening hit, while Hollow Claws' blitz stuns Mollat. As Marsh Mole picks up the ball, the second season is on its way. The Knights hit back, and Baron Severin hypnotizes Protector, thus opening for an attack on Marsh Mole. Baron Leon tries his best, but Mole manages to dodge away, and the good Baron is distracted by an urgent need to put his teeth to the throat of the good thrall Bonacieux, who is promptly carried off the field. Comte Gervaise also comes Close to Mole, but fails to hypnotize him. Bomber stops Grignon from dodging and stuns him, but Claws fails to follow up and seems rather confused... Without him, the Scavenger don't manage to clear the wall of thralls to open up for the skinks, so Mole moves the ball to a more secure place about midfield. Or, that's what he thought, but With Comte Gervais dodging past Booster, the Mole is suddenly vulnerable and the Comte exploits this immediately, and sends Mole off with a nice punch that causes him to loose the ball. The rookie Vampire Celestin hypnotizes Lightning, and Green Guardian can only look ast Baron Severin steals the ball. Of course such strenuous actions require feeding, and another thrall, Fortune Mollat, is sent off the Field. Three thralls gone, and not even halftime yet. But it's the Knights With the ball now, and the Scavengers need to recover it. Aggresive blocking sends most of the remaining Knights on to their backs, and Marsh Mole can recover the ball. An eager Baset Grignon tries to put himself in a position to assist in an attack on the Mole, but stumbles and falls. This rashness catches most of the Knights on the wrong side of the ballcarrier, and allows the Scavengers to put all their sauruses and skinks between the carrier and the Knights, and even though Comte Gervais knocks River Rover out of the Field, they cannot prevent the Scavengers from bunching up on the goalline to stall the half. A last ditch attempt sees Celestin hypnotizing Booster to allow Baron Severin and thrall Grignon to get within striking distance of the ballcarrier, the Scavengers can With contemptuous ease push both Grignon and the good Baron Severin onto the stands. A counterattack means that Booster follows the two Knights onto the stands, but as Comte Gervais leaves the Field to find a beautiful maiden to feed on (we are uncertain of whether the Blood Knights fans include beatiful maidens any longer...one would think they are all gone by now), Marsh Mole can score his TD and the Scavengers are ahead with 1-0. As the scavengers take their position, and the last second of the half ticking away, rookie campire Seigneur manages to give Claws a hit in the back that sends him off. The scavengers fans hold their breath for a while, but luckily, the apothecary knows how to deal with those kinds of wounds, and he can use the intermission to patch up ol'e Claws, so he is back again for the second half.

Not a bad half for my players, as we managed to score, but not a good one either, as we did not manage to get one single Knight off the field for the rest of the match. This is starting to look very much like a Draw, unless we can show great promise on defense. It's Bomber, Claws and Lightning in the LOS, when the crowd goes Wild, and spends valuable time on the clock until the stadium guards can regain control of the wild riot. Delayed, the Knights goes aggresively at Our LOS, and Claws is stunned by hte ferocity of their opening moves. However, as Baron Severin fails to pick up the ball, the scavengers can move their sauruses back into the line, and Fraternier managers to stun Jantot.
This time, however, Baron Severin is not to be denied,. He pick up the ball and runs along the line, handing it over to Comte Gervais, who finds a hole in the line as Celestin pushes Bomber back. Followed by faithful thralls Bonacieux and Mollat, Comte Gervais made it look easy to break through the scavenger line. Lightning manages to trip Fayette, though preventing a third thrall from joining the breakthrough. This gives the scavengers some time, and Marsh Mole Returns to mark the Comte, while Bomber blitzes Bonacieux. The comte, however, takes it all in great stride and blitzes past a stunned Marsh Mole for the first Knights TD of the night. The home crowd cheers wildly (coming close to another riot), and the game is a draw, all players are still in the game and it's the Knights kicking with about half of the half left.

The Scavengers uses the same attack formation as at the start of the game. A blitzing Claws sends Mollat off the field with a KO, and Rover manages to Catch the ball outright and runs up the field with it. Barn Severin manages to hypnotise Claws, and even though other attempts at hypnotising the Close-in defense of Rover, Comte Gervais manages, through some fancy dodging, to get at him and knock him over, and the ball is loose. The scavengers manages to push the advancing Vampire brood back fron the ball, but does not attempt to pick it up yet. In some line action, Bomber sends Jantot off with a groin stretch, and Lightning stund Grignon, even though he is knocked over himself. Around the ball, Baron Severin attempts to pick it up in the face of no less than three scavenger players, and manages to pull it off, to great cheers from the Knights fanclub, only to be brought down hard in the next moment by a splendid divetackle by Swamp Swimmer. This doesn't help the embattled scavengers much, though, as almost all the sauriiar still fighting with the Knight's linemen. Protector gives them some time, however, and Blue Bomber manages to push thrall Saglier onto the ball. It Bounces and finally ends up in the strong hands of Fraternizer, and with rookie Rover in a scoring position! The Knights rallies admirably and as Severin hypnotizes Protector, Comte Gervais can just about manage to hit ballcarrying Fraternizer, and knocks him over. Again, the ball bounces, but alas, to the chagrin of the Knights, it is Black Booster who ends up with it. As best they can, the Knights concentrates around the ballcarrier while Bonacieux makes a sacrifice foul on Claws to keep him down. That suceeds, and the ref don't see it either. Booster struggles, but can't penetrate the Knights line, and Baron Leon manages to hypnotize Booster, so that Bonacieux can knock him out and off the Field. Lizarazu fails, however, to bring Down Jungle Warrior, who is the only scavenger in a scoring position. Warrior runs into position and scavengers manage to push most of the Knights away from the ball, so that Mole can recover it, but as Mole runs to pass the ball to Warror, he is tripped by Julien Bessy, and the game is over. Starting with a Draw, just like last season, we are not fully satisfied, but then again, neither are we totally dissatisfied. All our players are healthy (for a change), and we look forward to the next match. ”