“This was very much a game of two halves as far as I was concerned. The first half - which lasted for six turns - was all mine. I scored quickly, I had a couple of turns of careful defending, Pirigin kindly went through a patch of terrible dice and I got to score a second with a stupidly successful dodge into a TZ, pick-up in a TZ, dodge out, long bomb, and run it in.

At this point, being the gentleman I occasionally am, I mentioned to Pirigin that he'd had a couple of terrible turns of dice and that my second score was all luck, no skill. I was feeling very magnanimous in my walking all over him. Sadly, Nuffle was listening, and took my humility for hubris, because from that point on everything went downhill - and not just gently downhill, but full-speed, on a bike with no brakes.

In the following 2 turns I suffered 2 KOs, a death, a BH and two failed dodges and there was no way I could stop the TD after that, so it was 2-1 at the half. Still, everything to play for...

Thanks to my Bloodweiser babes, neither of my KOs came back so I was looking a bit thin on defence - and even thinner after another KO and BH joined the horizontal half of the team. Again, there was nothing I could do to stop the score.

Still, I thought, five turns left, and with me getting the final turn, there was still every chance I could win it.

Thanks to my Bloodweiser babes, two of my three KOs decided to stay out yet again, although thankfully the thrower returned so I started the offence with a pass... NOTE TO SELF: remember to check for thoroughly annoying dark elves with pass block and diving tackle. Oops!

So Pirigin's third TD was all on me - I can't blame the dice, it was just a stupid lack of concentration and it allowed the dark elves to control the final few turns without really having to break a sweat. I made a half-hearted effort to stop them, but really I was relying on the one-turn TD in turn 8 to go for the draw. This was always going to be a tough one, as Pirigin had enough side-step to fully-populate the line of scrimmage, but I only needed to advance a single square thanks to my MA9 catcher...

I made the pass from right across the far side of the field, even throwing it over the head of that damned pass-blocker, but then the tree (who had been stellar all game up until this point) failed his break tackle and that was that.

THINGS I LEARNED:

Willow Rosebark is rubbish. He may be ST4, but without block he gets left till last and against a team of blodgers, all he really does is push people around on offence and get pushed around on defence - and get knocked over a lot as well. Two merc linemen would definitely have been more useful. Also, his sprite is green and almost transparent and blends perfectly into the background of the field, so half the time I forgot he was even there and did nothing with him anyway.

There's a difference between being gracious in victory and going soft on your opponent because you feel sorry for them. Do the first, don't do the second. And when everything goes pear-shaped, don't go easy on your opponent, but do be gracious in defeat.

”