Once again the Vikings faced the Divine Rats. Last time they had the chance to induce and used this advantage to remove all rats from the pitch. This time it was DR who could induce, and to prevent this event from happening two extra apotechs, a babe and two mercenaries (a line rat and a thrower) where induced. And it did work, but not enough to get point in the match…
The Vikings decided to kick to the rats, and this resulted in a riot that took up a turn of the match. DR did not have much luck in the blocking department but managed a single KO and Jesus picked up the ball.
DR did not try to score quickly but after half a half Jesus decided to score for 0-1 as the rest of the team could not protect him any longer. But no harm had happened to either team.
This was about to stop. On the LoS the mercenary thrower was BH by Egil Uldsson who piled on him. But the score was evened out when a loud crack in the amour alerted the ref to Snorre Skjoldsson foul and send him out, even though it was only a stun.
DR attacked the ball carrier Svine Buesson, and since it was Holy Spirit who blitzed the thrower dumped-off to Ask Sigfredsson, but was only pushed. The Vikings did not like this attack, and first Egil Uldsson piled Uranus BH and then the ball carrier Ask Sigfredsson blitzed Holy Spirit and BH him as well. Both berserkers learned guard from these casualties!
In the end the ball had been handed to Uld Runeson, but he was not out of reach from Jesus. The snow troll had put his TZ on Jesus (finally he had moved), but usually the agile runner don’t feel it is any problem dodging past an opponent. But maybe it was the disturbing presence, cause even with dodge and team practice he only made it to fall right in front of the runner and thus there where no problems for Uld Runeson to run down for the TD 1-1.
The babe helped two of the three KOed rats back, and it was still 11 on pitch for 2nd half. But only for a short while! Frej B was SI by Ask Sigfredsson and another line rat was KOed. And when Jesus had a chance to hit on the ball carrier he went down himself getting KOed. So 8 vs. 11! With Holy Spirit BH and God KOed next turn there where no Gutter Runners left. In the same turn Egil Uldsson killed Tyr A so bad that the hired quack salver apotech could do nothing, and Theodor Santini finally did something and BH the mercenary linerat. Then Uld Runeson passed the ball to Sigfred Runeson and learned Diving Tackle from this.
Only 5 vs. 11! Nevertheless Zeus had an easy one dice blitz on the ball carrier Sigfred Runeson but even with all the team practice he failed to take the lineman down. Next turn Sigfred Runeson then scored for 2-1 early in the half. He also learned guard from this to increase Olvig’s number of Guards from 1 in this match to 4 in then next!
DR got two KOed back but not Jesus, so God and thrower Buddha had to manage alone with 7 players. The Vikings did, however, not try to cower the wide zones, so a safe perimeter was created for God and he obtained the ball from Buddha and ran into scoring position.
This was effectively blocked by the Norse, but only because the first block almost went wrong for DR. After that God did not dare run for the TD, and he ran back to Buddha instead. Two Vikings got their TZ on him one of these snow troll Theodor Santini. But the blitz was used elsewhere. Thus when God saw his chance he dodged between these two and managed to run out of blitz reach. Sadly the coach had forgotten that a jumping-up Egil Uldsson would be able to push a runner into blitz reach, but luckily Egil Uldsson was not satisfied with just pushing his victim and when trying to hard he went down himself. This left God with a safe tying TD, but it was pondered for a while if a turn extra could be stalled. In the end it seemed to risky, and God scored for 2-2.
With only just enough time and Jesus back in the Norse still had a job to do to win the match. The kicker Loke placing the ball deep so a pass was needed by Svine Buesson to Ask Sigfredsson, but there where not enough rats left (only 8) to block off the Norse so 5 of these where already in TD range. Thus the best chance was to get to the ball carrier. And Jesus did just that but once again with team training and all (less than 1/3 risk of failing during practice) Jesus went down him self, in stead of stripping the ball from Ask Sigfredsson.
This left no obstacles in the way from scoring except that a runner would have to catch a hand-off from Ask Sigfredsson. But in all the excitement of these last turns the Olvig Coach had not even looked at his turn counter, and when corrected the catch seemed even more uncertain than the failed stripping from Jesus. To vent his anger over this Egil Uldsson made a last SI, this time by piling on Zeus, but now the team apotech took maters in his own hand and healed him completely.
With that out of the way, the only remaining task was to try and score and Bjørn Annasdatter had no trouble catching the hand-off and thus scored for 3-2.
But it was still not over. With both the thrower, two runners including Jesus and 8 players in total a one-turner was not out of reach, but with a perfect defence from the Vikings this was almost all but impossible and furthermore even with a perfect pass from Buddha did God fail the catch ending the match without further harm to the Rats.
The mercenary line rat received the MVP for getting injured by the snow troll whereas Sigfred Runeson obtained his from the TD for 2-1.
