New Zealand has played its first international match, against Italy. The result was as follows:

Italy 49 New Zealand 35. Half-time score was 28-14 to Italy.

The game was lost in the first quarter, where Italy outscored NZ 21-7. The teams otherwise matched each other in every quarter. Both teams relied heavily on the passing game.

New Zealand's net yardage wasn't too shabby. Overall, the Black Helmets gained 450 yards, 447 passing and 3 rushing. However, Italy was even more spectacular, with 572 net yards (564 passing, 8 rushing)

Michael Ingram was the starting quarterback for this match. He went 17 for 38, a passing percentage of 44.7, with his longest pass being for 76 yards. Per pass attempt, he averaged 11.8 yards, which was the one area where he did better than his Italian counterpart. On the down side, he was sacked twice and threw one interception. The Italian QB was never sacked or intercepted. He had a passing percentage of 50.9% and averaged 9.9 yards per passing attempt, with a longest pass of 80 yards.

Italy scored 7 touchdowns to New Zealand's 5. There were no field goals; neither side even attempted a field goal. All touchdowns came from quarterback throws. For New Zealand, tight end Aaron Old scored three TDs, while wide receiver Dan Barron and TE Cameron Mildenhall scored one apiece.

Old was easily the best receiver, completing 7 receptions for a total gain of 263 yards and the aforementioned 3 touchdowns. He made an average gain per reception of 37.6 yards, and his longest reception was for a 76-yard TD in the final quarter.

Considering how overmatched we were on paper, I thought this actually wasn't a bad effort. Certainly, the offence was quite superb, but the defence left a lot to be desired. I don't really know how to fix that though. I could make one or two tweaks here and there, perhaps, but it's not going to get any easier against Germany next week.

We can take one small consolation from this loss: the Aussies got thumped even worse.

SHIT!!!!!

I didn't set orders on time!

Damn, damn, damn, damn!!!!!

Sorry guys. Have had a lot going on this week, but still should have remembered.

We lost in the end. This time we fell down in the second half after going to the half-time break at 21-all! Rather strangely, the score was exactly the same as last week: 49-35.

Sorry, I forgot to set up for this week's game against the Czech Republic. But with four games still to go, the situation is not irretrievable. It was interesting actually that the Czechs could only manage to beat NZ 35-0 in spite of the Black Helmets having a bot formation. So if I actually set up properly, we could be a chance.

Have now set up against Poland. Thankfully, most of my old Shaky Islanders players are now with other teams, but there are still five in my erstwhile team, including both gunners and two linebackers. Have been forced to use them in the absence of any viable alternatives. Crossing fingers that no one gets injured in next Friday's training.

Damn it to hell! Screwed by an injury. Failed to log in on time.