“An unsurprisingly fun game full of action and excitement, plenty of scoring, plenty of passing, and even an interception.

But the Toads were not in the mood for losing today. They played a tough game, and even though I suffered only a single BH, their blocking was right on the money and much of my team spent much of its time on the ground.

And at the same time, the wood elves clearly weren't in the mood for a win, either. I lost count of the number of dodges and go for its I failed, but it was a big number, and always when I really needed not to (which, to be fair, was most of the time). The game stats claim I only rolled 16 1s in the entire game, but if that's true, then they all came together in twos, because that snake had an awful lot of eyes today.

I don't really mind. As far as I can remember, not a single one of those 1s was on a pass. I made eight long passes or long bombs today and they were all caught - though sadly the second one was caught by a toad.

That resulted in the slann's first TD. After my return score, I was granted a blitz on the kick-off and although it was quite deep, I could get two players down there, one to stand firm right behind the ball and a wardancer to catch the kick, avoid the blitz and leap away for the score. Except that he failed his go for it, and the reroll, and fell flat on his face.

In the end, it all came down to a 1-dice block to stop the score. A POW/skull wouldn't do so I rerolled it to a skull, and that left the way clear for the slann to score.

The first drive of the second half was easy enough for the slann. The wood elves were two men down, and although the tree made a hugely impressive four-step blitz, which resulted in him knocking the ball free and then catching it, there were enough slann around to knock him to the ground afterwards and get the ball back.

After that, I was just playing for a respectable scoreline. But even that was hard enough as every wood elf catcher seemed to have a slann blitzer as a shadow. I threw to one of them anyway. I could have dodged away for the score - it has been known - but didn't in this case, and had to scrabble around for a couple of turns to get the ball back. I even made a backwards pass with a catcher in order to get the ball to my thrower, but fortunately the catch was muffed, otherwise I would have had some seriously negative passing stats, and no one wants that.

And anyway, the thrower picked up pn the following turn and long bombed it for a score.

On their final turn, the Toads were given a quick snap and Harad went for the one-turn TD. I(t was an impressive attempt (helped, I must confess, by a dodging wood elf lineman who chose to keep dodging rather than be knocked over) but sadly that final go for it proved too much and the poor toad tripped and fell.

Which, happily, allowed me to grab the ball and make one final long bomb, just because.

So, it was a loss. But it was the kind of loss that I really don't mind. The thrower racked up 7 for 66, no one was injured, no fans left and the gold was reasonable enough - though not quite enough to allow me to buy a lineman to replace the loner.

So a good morning's work. But now the sun is streaming in through the double glazing, I've worked up an appetite and there is coffee to be drunk. And then, perhaps, a little nap to be had. Oh, the joys of self-employment!”