“Note, luck reading out as we had a bad connection and both of us kept pinging out and had to reload the turns a couple of times.
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A tightly contested game with the Thugz much more effective than their lowly strength rating would suggest.

The Hellbringers started in offence and due to some inept blocking on the line of scrimmage found that they could not safely cage the ball. The much more experienced Thugz applied some difficult pressure and it took a risky pass from Hobgoblin Laglop to Bull Centaur Tzorak to get the first score before the Thugz could force a turnover.

The Thugz on their drive made a mistake (a second double skulls roll out of 4-5 blocks) and found themselves under pressure, however, Bunta dodged his way into the end zone and the legendary Orc Passer Fro'de threw the ball from behind the line of scrimmage to the end zone for the Thugz first score.

There was less than a third of the opening period remaining and the Thugz only had 9 players to play defence. The Hellbringers abandoned their usual cage play and sent 5 players down field as potential catchers. The Thugz covered all the options but the Hellbringers combined to free up Slurppa the Hobgoblin who was on the sideline near the end zone. Laglop threw the short pass and Slurppa scored a TD to regain the lead for the Hellbringers.

In the second period the Thugz started slowly due to some tough Hellbringer defence, but soon found a way to score again after the Blitzer Ripa dodged his way into the end zone and Fro'de found him again with an easy pass (heck, it is always easy when you have AG5, Accurate and Strong Arm!).

With just over half of the second period remaining, the Hellbringers lined up against 9 Thugz, but found themselves under pressure due to a blitz!!! Luckily for the Hellbringers the ball landed deep in their corner, too far for the Thugz to threaten.

The Hellbringers played conservatively, sending 4 players back to protect the ball whilst trying to find an opening upfield. Eventually, the Hellbringers pushed one player out of bounds and then surrounded the only Thugz player that could stop the score before passing the ball to Bull Centaur Tzorak who caught the ball and scored the winning TD.
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Despite 40 odd strength difference, this was a very hard game. My opponent has an Orc thrower with 180+ SPP that throws at 2+ practically anywhere! And a couple of other players with more than 100 SPP. My players found themselves bullied all over the place and if it wasn't for me getting an early casualty and reducing his maximum number of players to 9, it would have been a long day in the office.

I also usually cage, but had to resort to the throwing game and using my Bull Centaurs as catchers (needed rerolls both times LOL) as he was too strong for me play a slow advancing cage.

Anyway, it was a good fun match against a good fun coach despite the multiple drop outs (we both lost some pows or rerolls due to reloads but that's life).


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