“As far as developing your team goes, here's my advice.

1) Buy a Re-Roll as soon as you have 140k in Treasury. Save up to that point, you need another re-roll very badly. Stop only to take 3+ SPP Hobgoblin Journeymen.

2) Take random General skills on Hobgoblins at every opportunity.
S: Block, Dirty Player, Kick, Sure Hands, Wrestle. This alone speaks to random G skills.
A: Pro. Okay, that's not a lot.
B: Dauntless, Fend, Frenzy, Tackle.
C: Strip Ball.
D: Shadowing.
That's amazing odds, take it at half price as a first skill on every Hobgoblin. After that you can save up to hand-pick a complementary skill or a stat (+AV and +MA are both amazing, as is +AG). By contrast, the Dorfs should take Guard or Mighty Blow, maybe one gets Grab.

Okay, as far as the game goes: on turn one, you should have set up to block diagonally on the line, and specifically to block away from the play.To this effect, you should have swapped the Hobgoblin on the line with the Dwarf on the other side. Then you could diagonally block away from the action, starting with the guy on the far end, using the Hobgoblin's assist from just outside the wide zone markers. then, if you roll a push, you can push laterally and the dwarf closest to the hob could have blocked again with the hob's assist. This also has the advantage of keeping the slow Dwarfs inside the hashmarks while your faster Hobgoblin can play out wide. It gives you an alternative on the back side of the play.

That's why your first-half offensive play failed, really. You left a bunch of Dwarfs out of the action, while overcommitting on the other side. I had an easy time making sure you couldn't make progress. I also got some luck. Assuming that I had a team RR for it (I did), the surf on your Bull that sealed the match had about a 30% chance to go haywire, and the fact that it didn't, and I didn't even need a RR, sealed that wacky 3rd TD, not to mention putting you down one of your two best players. Also, the sideline is dangerous. I got to surf your dorf largely because you overcommitted way too far out on the first two turns.

Another thing, in the first turn of the second half, you got both your faster players, the Hob and the Bull, spread out wide in the hopes that I failed the pickup. I was able to isolate them, and from there it was easy. You couldn't necessarily have done much to save your position with 7 on 10, but keeping the Bull or the Hob central would have given you a response play.”