On the way up to Jyväskylä (pronounced U-vas-cu-lar) it was raining almost the entire way north. I thought it was going to be a sloppy game in the mud. When we got to the field, it was wet and still raining a bit, but the field was real nice and had a sand base, so it was okay. It only rained during warmups and then it didn't rain for the rest of the day.
On our first drive, I hit Klaus for a long gain. Then Jari ran the ball in for a quick score. Disco was here to kick for us, so he put us ahead 7-0. They eventually tied the game up 7-7 on a passing play underneath.
Our offense wasn't in high gear because we were missing two of our lineman. One of the guys that stepped in to play is a veteran, and I mean a real veteran because the last time he played was 10 years ago. He started practicing 2 weeks ago and he is a big guy. Then since Kimi was retarded last week and threw a punch at one of their players, he was suspended by the league this week so he couldn't play. So we had one of our defensive lineman come over to play center. This guy had never played center before in his life and didn't know any of our offensive plays. I had to tell him run or pass after every huddle. He did a great job for never playing center before, but we had some problems with the snaps which prevented us from scoring a few times. It would always seem to happen on a key 3rd down or near the goaline. But he played well for never playing before and we got the win. That wasn't the only thing that wasn't going for us, some of our sure handed receivers had the case of the drops. I remember at least two 3rd down conversions that were flat out dropped, and one of them was for a touchdown.
To add to all this...
The refs during the game weren't that great, in fact they were absolutely pathetic on 2 calls. Let me explain.... I'm going to go off on a tangent for a little bit. During one offensive play, Klaus our Tight End was releasing from the line, I guess there was a linebacker over top of him preventing him from going out into his pass route. So Klaus gives him a shove to get him off. That is perfectly legal in fact it is what football is all about. Klaus wasn't out in his route yet, this was right after the snap. The refs call a flag and say that Tight Ends can't bump and run off the line of scrimmage. First of all, bump and run is a defensive term and I have no idea what it means on the offensive side of the ball. Secondly, if that means that he shoved the linebacker on the line and then went out in to pass coverage that is fine. He may have done that, but in my 13 years of playing football that has never been a penalty. We ended up punting on that drive because the referees then said it was a 15 yard penalty. I think they made it up.
This next one is the worst one of all. We are punting. I get the punt off with some wicked curve, because I'm left footed and not many people are used to catching left footed punts. So the returner did NOT call for a fair catch and is running to the ball at full speed to his left. As you can see where this is going, he attempts to catch the ball and bobbles it about 3 times and on the last bobble it goes forward to one of our guys and he catches it. That is the same as a fumble since the returner touched the ball, it should be our ball. Meanwhile a split second after the returner loses the ball, Scott just comes in and absolutely levels the returner. It was the best hit over here by far. Nothing wrong with that play. The returner bobbled it lost it, Scott hit him and we got the ball. We should have it first and 10 on their 10 yard line. Our offense runs on the field calls our play and walks to the line. Meanwhile the refs are having a conference. One of them throws a flag straight up in the air. Then they call kick returner interference on Scott. Our sidelines was living. Everybody was trying to talk to the refs when they came over to explain. This is their reason. They said that you can't touch the kick returner while he is bobbling the ball. The REAL rule, is that as soon as the returner first touches the ball he is legal for contact. This doesn't matter if he catches it or he bobbles it. IF what the referees were saying is true, then a punt returner could bobble the ball all the way down the field and no defensive player would be allowed to touch him. (I could bobble a punt all the way down the field for a touchdown, is what the refs were trying to say.) That is obviously not the right call and it is obvious that these refs really don't know much if anything about football.
I've stayed off their case the whole season on my webpage. Its been bad before but never this blatantly horrible. I know they aren't professional referees and football may not be hugely popular over here, but have some common sense about the game. If you are ever refereeing any type of game and you are not sure of a call, don't call anything and let the players play the game. Refs over here try to be a part of the game too much and will throw flags even if they aren't sure of a ruling or a penalty. Normally those penalties aren't that big of a deal, but we would've had the ball on their 10 yard line and now they have the ball on their 30. Two plays later their running back takes it 70 yards in for the score. That is a 14 point swing, by one penalty and it wasn't even close to the right call. Okay, I'm done with the tanget now.
That put us down 14-7, going into halftime. I got a bit beat up in the first half. I got a shot to the kidney and ribs diving after a fumbled shotgun snap, so that had my stomach messed up most of the first half. I felt like I was going to throw up or I had to go to the bathroom. I felt horrible in the first half. After halftime I felt a little better but not much. I also hit my elbow on a defensive players helmet when I went to throw the ball and that didn't feel good at all. Its pretty swollen today, but I had a similar injury last fall and it didn't seem to effect me too much. But this game was the most I've been beaten up all year.
In the second half, we somewhat snapped out of it. The defense really snapped out of their first half slump. Scott ended up picking a pass off about 2 or 3 drives into the second half that was huge. I hooked up with Otto for a wide open touchdown in the third quarter and you know Haula, so we went for the two point conversion and got it. That put us up one point, 15-14. The defense didn't let them score the entire second half, which is a good half leading into the playoffs. We were still missing quite a few guys on defense as well. Some guys were taking their summer vacation, but everyone will be back for the next two games. We have not played one game with our full team. However, we found out that our starting LB, Janne, will not be playing in the final. He got hurt during game 2. Satola will not be playing any wide receiver, but may kick in the final. His collarbone is still broken.
Anyway, back to the game. On offense in the 4th quarter, I hit Juha with a bit of luck on a deep post for a touchdown. He was pretty well covered and the defender jumped and tried to bat it away and instead batted it up in the air as he was falling. Juha was right there to grab it out of the air and take it in for the TD. At this time we would like to welcome back Juha to the team from his 4 week long honeymoon in Thailand.
Klaus played awesome again catching everything in sight, I'm not sure how many catches he had but it was around 8 or so. He is also playing defense so he goes both ways and can get pretty tired, but still does a great job. He got our MVP for the game.
Next week, we play the Butchers in the semifinals at home so that should be a good game. In the other semifinal it is the Roosters versus the Crocodiles. The last time those two teams played they went into overtime. Our game is on Sunday this week, and the championship the following week is on Saturday.