“Oh Nuffle can be cruel, and he was just this for my opponent.

Some early removals did swing things in the way of the Orcs, as it often does with the Orc v Dwarf teams. Perhaps the tipping point was the removal of the Bull. It is a tough team to pilot from there, but my opponent Coach Urrghs was magnificent.

Learnings:

1) Box and T shape manipulation for chain push can be very handy. Look for this in scrums for favourable positioning.

2) When defence pressure comes hard at you, there can also be opportunity. We were able to find a little gap, with the help of the correct dice.

3) Using piece to pin worked well, but it is Orc armour so can afford to do so, and dwarf speed and Bull agility so doubly effective.

4) Re-roll management was ok.... but some failed rush attempts probably not required. Added protection to ball was the goal, but left us without options when desperately required on score turn.

Re-roll if ball not safe, if attempting the score, or if value trade off is significant (many more blocks to come on LOS etc).

Thank you Coach Urrghs for the game- a pleasure to play a coach of your quality. ”