The initial deployment of the squad was delayed, with the latecomers blaming Sentinel involvement for the reason they were tardy upon arrival. Not all of the other troops were so sure this was the truth.

Upon reaching the Machine City, the team, led by fearless leader Evan Gwilliam, were directed to a small room, to change into our battle attire for the upcoming war with the Machines.

With fair conditions, the game began.

It was soon clear to the humans of Finsbury Park Rugby Club, that the machines had been programmed well and understood the game and its customs. The first few minutes of the match were back and forth with a few clearing kicks and a couple of defensive sets from the FPRFC Battalion.

Throughout the first period, our lineout work went extremely well thanks to strong and straight throwing from Fred Bromley, and a solid combo of jumping/lifting from Chris Neels and his pod. Along with a massive first scrum, which had the Machines scrambling to react, hope of the first ever victory in the Machine City became real.

The Machines began to fight back.

After minutes of FPRFC repelling the machines attacks, finally our line broke. The Machines had scored. It was a rolling maul which collapsed over our line, with some questionable binding and rebinding missed by an “impartial” ref. Conversion missed. 5-0.

Shortly after, the machines were at it again. Attacking our flanks and sides is where they had been programmed to attack, and they were becoming exceedingly good at it.
Another score, another missed conversion. 10-0.

The Humans had now gotten to grips with the strength of the Machines. And after finally sustaining some ball and continued phases, powerhouse Peter O'Neill went over the try line from a strong 7m carry, with the machines unable to prevent him from reaching their line. It was to no avail as the sentinels were aware of the humans plan, and quickly dived under him to prevent the score. But positive signs for the Humans.

The machines continued to bring the fight. But the humans would not give up.

An excellent kick from the Machine 10, bounced and stopped in the FPRFC try zone, only to be defused expertly by the Humans winger, Jake Painter.

It must be noted that up to this point in the battle, the game was very much open for either team to win.

The Humans were continuing to prevent the machines from overpowering them with stellar defence and strong first half discipline. But the machines were still fresher than the humans and were consistently using replacement parts, with the first machine switch coming half way through the first half.

It quickly became apparent to scrum half Rich Roberts, who’s quick tap and go penalties confused the pre-programmed machines into continuously making errors, that the machines were NOT invulnerable.

After a sustained attack from the Fins, with strong carries from Peter, Conor and Josh in the build-up, Jack Adkins crashed over not too far from the sticks. This gave the Humans hope.
Now, we relied on our own machine. Our kicking machine, Harry McKay. He didn’t disappoint. 10-7.

The Machines took advantage of slack defending from the Back 3 humans, to drive down the left-hand side defence again to end the first half of the battle, leading 17-7.

The half time talk from the chosen one was clear. We were playing well, but, couldn’t count on the machines tiring. The machines were shocked that the humans had intentions of winning the game for themselves. The Machines were upgraded for the 2nd half.

The final act began and it was clear the humans couldn’t continue to defend at the same level as the first half. And now with tired legs and blazing machine sun, the sheer weight of number of the machines would take the advantage. The Humans made a few replacements of their own, with injections into the game from Alex Thomas, Rob Simpson, Steven Morse, Jean Brunel and Finsbury stalwart Morgan.

The first few minutes began as expected. The fight was being taken to the Machines from the outstanding human leader, Evan, with generals Jack, Peter, Rich and James Pattison guiding the Humans around the battlefield.

The Humans dared to dream.

However, the Machines were too strong for the humans, playing in Machine City. One of the fresher humans in James Meredith made a late tackle on a machine, which caused a short circuit in the machine’s cerebrum, and sparked a chaotic few minutes.

During this time, one of the humans’ newest generals on the pitch, even attempted to tell one of the oldest surviving generals of FPRFC to “f**K off” and was duly called a “dickhead” by the other general. The majority of the other generals agreed he was in fact, acting like a dickhead.

With both a machine and a human being removed for the remainder of the game, the humans couldn’t hold out any longer and the machines scored 3 unanswered tries to thwart the promise of the first Human rugby match victory, since the machines released the virus to kill the remaining humans.

The referee finished proceeding with 3 high sirens from his mouth blaster, and the machines were victorious 38-7.

The post-game chat from the skipper was concise. We did well. But we’ll need to do better.

After the post-match human limb and body cleansing, the machines escorted us all to the other humans whom had been captured and kept for experimentation, local to the machine’s home.

Adequate supply of libations and nutrients were engorged by the hungry, thirsty human squad.

The human combatants were then boarded on the Nebuchadnezzar, to return to the last free human city.

The Fullback.

POTM - Peter O'Neill
DOTD - Aslan Kaplan

Match pics here.