“It's probably fair to say that no game is a complete write-off before it even begins, but this was certainly not one I entered with much excitement and anticipation. My woodies were not in the best shape after their last game - which was also against dark elves - and looking at les trop bg de Naggaroth I could see several players I was not going to be able to deal with without some reasonable luck. Still, there was no one else on gamefinder and to be honest, I don't really care what happens to the team, so I thought I may as well give it a go.

The first turn was a little disappointing, with the tree rolling four push backs with his multi-block and the wardancer making an ineffective blitz. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I should have celebrated, as this was my most successful turn of offence in the entire game. Turn 2, which could so easily have resulted in a score, ended with a double 1 on the catch roll for a lineman who was clear to run it in...if only he could have caught the damn ball.

After that, the rest of the half belonged to the dark elves, whose blocking was as successful and effective as mine was rubbish. Once the tree took root and I was three men down, it was perhaps not surprising to see lohu stalling out the half while he did what damage he could to the woodies.

There was nothing I could do to stop the score, and very little else I could do at all, so I was happy enough to go into the second half only 1-0 down.

Surprisingly, the dark elves decided not to stall out the whole of the second half - possibly because the sweltering heat had robbed them of a couple of their better players - and with my blocking being every bit as useless as it was in the first half, they scored quickly.

So it was back on offence for the woodies and I wasted no time before lobbing the ball downfield and giving the catcher what cover I could find. I knew there was a strip ball blitz coming, but there was nothing I could do to stop it so I thought I'd just see where the ball landed and work something out from there.

The scatter wasn't too bad, but the important block to clear away the dark elf assassin failed and I was forced to do the whole dodge and pick-up thing while being shadowed. I failed both shadowing rolls (or more precisely, lohu succeeded them) and I failed the dodge that would have seen me clear for a touchdown.

At that point, it was all over. The dark elves had the ball again, I was down to five elves and a tree that had taken root once more and every single block I made resulted in a skull. So at least things were moving along at a nice pace.

lohu got in a couple of late fouls to make sure my next opponent has an easy time of it, and then scored on his final turn. For my final turn, the tree stayed out with heat exhaustion so there was nothing for it but an unnecessary long pass (I couldn't even make a long bomb without going for it, and I was sure I'd fail it).

So, that was that. A horrible game that gave me no satisfaction whatsoever and left me with five journeymen for my next game, next to no fans and a lingering feeling that I'm really not cut out for the nastiness and obsessive competition of Ranked Division.

I just like throwing the ball a lot and scoring as quickly as possible. I don't even mind losing all the time (which is a good thing), but I just can't find it in me to kick an opponent when they're down (literally, as well as figuratively) and this puts me at a significant disadvantage in most games because so many other coaches clearly have no problem with it.

Well, I guess that's just the way it is.

”