“There was a strange sound emanating from the coach's office. It was a strange office (being just a lean-to against the wall of the Theatre of Breams) but the sound itself, a rhythmic thumping combined with an ululating whine, was not one the Scoundrels had heard before. Eventually, somebody was brave enough to put their head through the doorway and look to see what was going on. Inside, the head coach was thumping his head against the wall while whining "they were dead ... it was meant to be an easy victory ... they were dead ... it was meant to be an easy victory" over and over again.

"Ladyshape" asked Bogan Picnic, "have you got any more of your smelling salts? Coach might need them."

Ladyshape growled in response. She'd taken a bad wallop to the head on the very first block of the game, and everyone had thought she was dead until the wind picked up, the smell of rancid lavender wafted downwind, and she shuddered back to life.

"Ah well, it's not like anyone died, is it?" Bogan Picnic, still resolutely cheerful in the face of adversity, tried to look on the bright side. "Well, apart from Bubo, but what do you expect, he played with fireworks too much and we've never had a bomma last more than a couple of games."

"He got killed by some Tilean-sounding blitzer" grumbled Teflon Fishslice. "Fireworks were nothing to do with it. It's a crying shame he couldn't blow himself to smithereens the way he was meant to."

"Yeah, well, we had a bit of a bad start to the match, but I saw one of their guys had a fractured skull."

"Picnic, mate, I know you're trying to be positive about it, but that guy tripped over and hurt himself. We were just standing around. Well, most of us were standing around. Manshape was taking a nap, Ladyshape was just groaning, Bubo was a smear on the pitch..."

"Accentuate the positive, right" Bogan continued, ignoring Fishslice. "It goes to show we don't even need to do anything, we can still hurt them. And what about Lonely Nigel, eh?"

Nigel stopped blowing into his hankie and looked up suspiciously.

"That was inspired, mate. WHen the ref said he was going to send you off for fouling that Jack Weakbrook bloke and you started crying about how you missed Vegemite Disaster, and he told you it was ok and you should just sit on the thinking chair for a bit, and then you came out and jumped up and down on Weakbloke's arm until it made a snapping noise, and the ref got cross again, and you put the waterworks on again and he said you weren't going to get a red card, just sit on the thinking chair again. Genius, mate. You're going to keep fouling and keep blaming it on old Disaster for the whole season. That's the sort of consistency you need to succeed.

"And what about Billy No-Mates, eh? Billy, I'm proud to be your friend. Well, I'd be proud to be your friend if you had any friends. The way you jumped up after Ladyshape threw you at those grumpy old men, and then you ran up, you ran up to that Enrique Double Glazing or whatever, and you smacked him in the mouth, and he fell over and dropped the ball, that was just genius, mate."

"Yeah, well, if the best the rest of us could do was trip over and push their players closer to scoring, it doesn't really matter what Billy's doing, does it?"

"Hey, that's uncalled for" said Bogan. "You saying Legneck is the best of the rest of us? I thought we were meant to be a functional egalitarian confederacy of like-minded equals."

"Equally rubbish at playing" said Avo Toast, rubbing the bandage on his head.

"Oi, now you can just shut it" said Bogan, annoyed by the constant negativity. "You were off the pitch as fast as you could get onto it. And don't start up about how you had an urgent topiary appointment. You stay on the pitch the whole match, you get to criticise. And I guess that means everyone apart from me and Burning Sensation can keep their mouths shut."

With that, the whole team began to fight. At length, the coach stopping whining and began to look on the bright side. With the whole team punching each other in the face, nobody was going out and causing expensive mistakes by trying to bet the team treasury on a lame horse. There was still time to triumph...”