“Last game of the season, and only a victory is good enough. It's a long time since we played the Ex-Pats in a game that counts, and this time we actually think we may have the better team. Our saurii are better, and likely also Our krox. They have two agile skinks, but we have a sprint skink with the potential to score in one turn. So... if we can keep the skinks down, advantage would be on our side. Still, the advantage is very slight and the most likely result is a Draw, and with a casualty or a missed pick-up or dodge at the wrong time, it could easily end up a loss. Wide open, in other words, and those are the best games :)

The Ex-Pats have the fan advantage, but we start with the ball. Goal is quite simply to advance slowly and send as many Ex-Pats off as we can. The fans open With pelting The Bounty hunter with stones, sending him off KO'd. Not much else happens in the first part of the game, but the Expats manage to put pressure on us at their right side of the LOS, even though The arrior/philosopher manages to fail a dodge and KO himself. The boys use this to get a breathing Space and organiser themselves, but Expats evens the odds somewhat by sending Indigo Idler off badly hurt (apo found out that he was only faking) and maintains their pressure, and the Scavengers are getting exactly nowhere.We tiought we had a good cage, but heroic dodging by ther Daredevil sets up a chainpush to bring our ballcarrier in range of the Expats krox, who promptly KO's Mobster and the ball sails over the head of Warrior and is free outside of the Scavenger cage. We KO the valiant Daredevil and clears the area around the ball, but Warrior fails to pick up the ball (RR) and again it bounces badly for the Scavengers. The Expats can move al their saurii on the right side of the Scavengers screen, and the agile Fatalist can pick up the ball and run with it. He is unsupported, though, and thus the remaining two scavenger skinks, Breaker and Warrior, gangs up on him and Warrior stuns him. However, the Expats can put on more reinforcements, and the saurii dishonoured officer blitzes one skink, while another skink picks up the ball. No scavenger saurii are close by, so Breaker and Warrior need to pull off another blitz, but this time Breaker fails the Dodge and the Expats can run in 1-0.

Cake is brought forward for all Expats, and they are all celebrating on the sideline, players, coaches and even KO'd players, who consequently forgets to get onto the Field. Thus nobody realises that the Warrior is ready to score. Robbed of coachly advice (or maybe he could not be heard over all the cake eating), the playeres clump together close to their own goalline, except for the two rookie saurii and the Dragon Isles Pirate. A golden opportunity for Warrior, who tightens the lace of his running shoes. This MUST NOT fail! Unfortunately, Orange Peeler, who has been trusted with the blitz, becomes too eager, and in a flash insight, the Bad Sergeant dives to the ground instead of being manhandled into pushing Warrior forward. Well, well... A frustrated Mobster fouls the Sergeant and KO's him, but the ref has seen frustration before and sends Mobster off.

Thus, the half ends 1-0 to the Expats, and they start with the ball, so our prospects look bleak. The only good news are that 3 players are still eating cake in the KO Box, so the Expats can only field 9 players against our 11. And worse for the Expats, they are two saurii Down and thus at a strong disadvantage at the LOS.

The Expats set up with Daredevil in the LOS facing our Krox, and he don't manage to dodge out of the reach of Claws tail, so we can get in on the attack before the Expats are organised. First, however, we need to deal with their skink in scoring position, the Guerilla fighter. Team Captain Fraternizer is on that task, and KO's the Guerilla Fighter. The rest of the team gets organised into a nice screen. Expats need to sxcramble their saurii together on their left side around the LOS, but the failed going-for-it by the War Criminal turns the initiative over to the Scavengers. All of a sudden, the Dragon Isles Pirate is the only Expat between us and the ballcarrier, and Orange Peeler promptly blocks him to Kingdom come. With those broken ribs he won't be coming back any time soon! Idler and Diver marks the Fatalist down, before team captain Fraternizer bowls him over and the ball is loose! Wiggler and Breaker marks the ball, before Warrior comes running and grabs it, and dodges out of the Daredevils range with it. Suddenly, all the remaining Expats heavy players are blindsided, and only the skinks can try something. However, the Rebel fails going-for-it, and the Warrior can run in an easy defensive TD. We could have stalled, but figured that we wuold need another TD to advance into the play-offs, and there is still most of the half left to play.

Things are looking better. We are still 11 players against 9, and te Expats are down two saurii. However, the spectators are storming the Field, and we loose more precious time, and then the Dishonoured officer KO's Purple Protector, evening the odds considerably. We are hungry for a victory, and sends Diver and Wiggler around the Expats left flank in a last attempt to bring down the ballcarrier and get the equalizer, and gets very Close when Booster blitzes and KO's the Daredevil, but the frenzying War Criminal pushes Brewer out of position, creating a small hole for the Expat skinks. One by one they all dodge through, and we have only skinks to stop him with. Warrior manages to give the support, but Breaker fails his Dodge while blitzing, and that is that. The Fatalist can run in the winning TD, and this time, their coach is alert to our last-minute score attempt. Nevertheless, we are only one dodge away from success when the krox brings Warrior down. 2-1 Expats and we are not in the play-offs for the first time since season IV.

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