"Dwarvessssss... thissss is going to hurt. Again..."
The dwarven side starts off with a solid 410k of inducements, picking up a wizard, some bad habits to disrupt the lizards, magic beer and happy fans. The beer was, perhaps, obvious. Nonetheless, one stocky side and one stunty side take to the field, which for today's match, is a boat.
We're on a boat.
The dwarfish side wins the toss and elects to receive, the towering, orange mohawks of the suicidal troll-slayers barely coming up to brush the snouts of the skink front line... which evidently causes them to hesitate enough for the dwarves to get a quick snap as the ball lands short. Touchbacked to Makas the runner, the dwarves start by pulling everyone back in a feint and immediately barricading him in a wall of stunty muscle. The first offensive play of the match is from the wizard, of all people, as a fireball forces Mejj to hit the dirt.
In response, Vorr the Sharktooth all but rips Kraain's leg off, leaving him permanently slower despite the best efforts of the apocethary. Hisil Drek-Troll drops Vorr with a charge from nowhere, the dwarves' natural ability for being hard to knock over working into their hands despite some knocks that, without sturdiness, could have gone either way. In response, a quick shove leaves Makas open to a blitz, but only gets shoved back towards the touchline.
The fearless troll=slayers prove their might against the tough sauruses, mostly in the thick of the brawl barely into the skink half, although Vorr underestimates the muscle and pays for it with a trip into the crowd. Tezz, the skink brought on to replace the crippled Rijj from last game, gets his first ever game cut short with an injury that puts him out, but the skinks get their revenge as the ball is knocked off-field from a tackle by Rexx, although Tyrr fails to make good, fumbling the opportune ball as he tries to pick it up.
Svenaz clears the way with a blitz, while Burgar follows it up with a KO punch to Weyy, while the rest of the dwarves use their rather superior numbers to bring down most of the rest of the side - bad breathed Takk joins Tezz in the injury pile, sure to soon mount up, as Varil recovers the ball from the feet of Tyrr, looking more and more vulnerable. A swift, darting punch from Jarr brings him down, though, as Tyrr fumbles another pickup - but the bouncing ball lands back in his claws after all. Immediately, Uzkul tries to bring him down, but while not being as adept at tackling, fails to do more than shove him a fair distance, even if that leaves Tyrr exposed. As Anor tries to prevent Tyrr's escape, he falls flat on his face with a tailswipe from Garr that gives the skink a chance... except Tyrr ends up hitting the dirt, brought down by the adept arms of Aor. As Garr goes out, the ball is left... rather dangerous, the dwarves left with ample time to score and dwindling opposition numbers with little in the way of defence. And no-one standing - although that doesn't stop the dwarves, as Burgar puts the boot in and gets sent off because of it.
Mejj scrambles up, too far to offer a defence, and stomps Svenhk into unconsciousness. Jarr slips away from the dwarven line, but there's little that can be done to stop the ball, the stunty side taking their sweet time to shut down a skink counter-offensive, as Dagg picks up the bakk and waddles in to bring the score to 1-0 to the dwarves.
The skinks are left with barely enough time to score, and little in the way of a squad to do it with. Still, there's one counter to the dwarven Full Frontal Brutality, except that gets rendered null and void with a perfect defensive set up by the dwarves. The ball goes long, though, and Novv starts with the ball in his claws as time ticks down - he slips away, but Sorr fails to escape, and gets hurt for his efforts. The dwarves shot down the saurus defence, adding insult to injury by knocking out Vorr once more, as Svenaz seems to be the lone dwarf attempting to stop Novv. A bolt from the blue fails to do anything to Novv, though, and he slips away to equalise as time runs out.
Even after half-time, the skinks are still down four Stormers, or possibly the Stormers are down four skinks... or two skinks, two saurus. It's complicated. Still, the skinks set up to receive... only to have runner Novv taken out by a stray rock. A few quick shoves leaves the ball exposed, but Irzz fails to make good on a quick pass to secure the ball and it bounces, closer to the skink endzone than not, but still in a dangerous place. Especially as Hisil clears Irzz from the ball by putting him onto the planks. Uzkul recovers the ball, holding it safe and tight but causing no end of grief for the skinks. Well, temporarily, anyway, as the ever-slippery Jarr sprints to end Uzkul's match. Tyrr recovers the ball and backs off, waiting for an opening elsewhere on the field as slim as that seems, as Hisil works his way closer to him. However, the dwarves leave an opening for Tyrr to slip past and hand off to Garr, who tears off up-field with no hope of being caught, although the tackling goes worse elsewhere.
In response, the dwarves and their numbers start pounding the skins into the dirt, as Garr stays far, far away, although a waddling Anor serves to make life difficult for him. Or at least, for a few moments - Tyrr sprints around and drops Anor, giving Garr a straight run to the endzone to put the skinks 2-1 up with a quarter of the match to go.
At the kickoff, Mejj gets the chance to bolt forward, although fails to stop the dwarves from recovering the ball, and goes down for his efforts, and Irzz, in that ever-dangerous touchline position, goes down and out and into the apothecary's hut. Once more a box forms, and once more the skinks are on the defensive, although an opening lets Vorr smash the ball-carrying Dagg into the deck. The ball scatters out of the box, but not a single blue claw can reach it safely, and at the moment the dwarves still have the positional advantage. Tackles reign down on the three towering saurusses, and Makas snatches the ball from the ground with a pair of safe hands as he switches sides, backed up by bearded barrel-rollers, but Jarr fails to get more than a shunt on Makas and Rexx fails to back him up at all.
Makas breaks off and heads deep, the tackle-heavy side shutting down skink mobility with well-placed, stocky, bearded bastards, and Ravv and Tyrr aim to at least slow down the ball-carrying dwarf, but Tyrr messes up the block and leaves the dwarves with an ample opportunity to score as Ravv ends up down and hurting. The drums roll as Makas heads south, Tyrr literally the only skink in range - and the concussion-suffering lizard has enough troubles. However, he manages to shove Makas away in a daring move, but the effort is all four naught - without enough backup, he gets dropped, and Makas runs the ball in the final play, the whistle blowing the moment the dwarves equalise.
Weyy earns MVP for the Stormers for... getting knocked out, while Araraz gets the Earth Strikers' own for... doing nothing of note.
(...Didn't expect to draw. Didn't expect to not have any serious injuries, either... especially with how gutsy Tyrr was being.)