Less than 24 hours to the big kickoffs

[Paul-London]

(Remember i shall be simming the Championship games at 8am GMT as i'm then out from 10am onwards so i wanted to get them done before i go out)

BURFORD SAYS HE FEELS FINE

Burford had suffered a P-1 injury in the Wildcard game against Montreal but now feels back to 100%.  "It wont bother me this weekend, I've waited my whole career to play in a game like this, I'll be there whatever" said Burford.  The young Birmingham star has taken his team from 4-10 last year to 8-6 this year and an AFC Championship appearance.  The Fire have shown it is possible to win in the FWL and to make the jump from a losing record to a championship contender.

DT BULMAN GETTING NOTICED

In the regular season backup DT Tim Bulman hardly played, when he did however he made plays, he had just 5 tackles but also made 2 sacks.  Due to injuries in the Wildcard game Bulman saw more action and had 2 tackles and a sack.  The sack was huge, with Montreal driving late in the game Bulman made a huge sack on 3rd down to push the Machine back, on 4th down the Machine pass fell incomplete and the Fire ran out winners.  Bulman starts at DT3 this week in the Championship game and hopes to make a bigger impression.

BISHOP NOT WORRIED

Riders QB Michael Bishop has been in this position before, in 2008 he took his team to the AFC Championship only to lose to rivals Montreal 19-17 on a last minute FG.  Bishop was 1-4 in the playoffs before this years games but Bishop knows his team will come.  "GM (Jason) Hink has done a fine job with our team, people werent happy when (Curtis) Alexander left but Thunder Collins has done a good job after his injury and look, we're in the AFC Championship.  We're confident" said Bishop. 

ADMIRALS STILL WINNING DESPITE INJURIES

The loss of HB Jeronimo Huerta really hurt the team, starting C Dave Volk and now the loss of DT Clint Mitchell , another starter, is starting to really hurt Amsterdam.  The Admirals have a lot of depth on the d-line but not having these two stars is starting to make Amsterdam weaker.  "We will overcome these injuries" said QB Heath Rylance, "One of the best things about our team is that we have no huge star names like Austria, like the NFL's Patriots we're a great working team without any big names".  Amsterdam start as favourites and have homefield advantage but they will have to play one of their best games to get past Austria who have been improving week by week the last few games.

AUSTRIA CONFIDENT

Is it a smokescreen ?  Is Austrian GM Mario Kreiner really confident ?  Is he just trying to unnerve the Admirals GM ?  Kreiner seemed confident of a win but has also spoken that next season is the main year for his team to win it all.  Austria have looked very good the last few weeks and his decision to bench starters in Week 14 and give them a rest worked well against the Claymores.  The DarkKnights are missing a starting guard which has affected their rushing attack but with several players with fresh legs the DarkKnights could do well.  However a 4-3 record on the road this year is worrying for Austria, in Austria they are practically invincible going 13-1 the last two seasons, their only loss a meaningless Week 14 game this year against Scotland.  But can they overcome their problems on the road when they play in Amsterdam ?

RYLANCE HOPING TO MEET THE RIDERS IN THE FINAL

Heath Rylance has been through these big games before, he has led San Antonio to the FWL Bowl and also Amsterdam, he holds a 0-2 record in the final but this hasnt dented his confidence.  His tip for the AFC ?  "Well its gonna be a great game, I would personally love to play the Riders" said Rylance.  Why ?  Heath Rylance was the former starting QB of San Antonio but then was traded to Amsterdam when the Riders went with his backup Michael Bishop.  "I'm a huge fan of Michaels" said Rylance, "People said we had problems when we were on the same team, we didn't, we're both competitors and both wanted to start, was I annoyed I was the one who was traded at the time ? No comment !" said Rylance.

POWELL SIGNS WITH AUSTRIA

DarkKnights GM Mario Kreiner long has been a fan of younger players so it was a mild surprise after the Claymores Wildcard game he signed FB Marvin Welch a 10 year pro.  However with backup HB Carl McCullough out injured for the rest of the year the move made sense.  Powell was moved to HB and is scheduled to be the main backup to Ken Simonton.  "I'm happy as anything, after being cut by Frankfurt here I am in an EFC Championship " said Powell.  Powell has 2 FWL Bowl rings from his days with Frankfurt where he was the starting FB, in FWL Bowl XIII he was a Galaxy hero and stopped Montreal from making history.  Montreal who had won the last two FWL Bowls were looking to win an amazing third in a row, instead Powell helped set up a late FG to take the game to overtime and then in overtime he ran in from 18 yards out to win the game.  Now Powell is a DarkKnight for one week at least and is hoping to make it to an amazing third straight FWL Bowl.

HATCHETTE FACES HIS FORMER TEAM

Matthew Hatchette was a former 1st round pick by Amsterdam but was constantly frustrated at being a backup in Amsterdam as he had to play WR3 behind Trevor Insley and Chris Coleman.  Eventually Hatchette was traded to Austria where he blossomed and has had 4 straight 1000 yard seasons in Austria and 21 touchdowns in 4 seasons.  "I cant wait to play against the Admirals and against CB Jordan Younger" said Hatchette.  I had a slight bruise in the Wildcard game so i played WR2 but i'm back to my normal starting WR1 position and I promise you I'm gonna show the Ads were wrong in letting me go"

VETERAN WESCHE ENJOYING THE RIDE

LB Stefan Wesche was a hero in Berlin going to two FWL Bowls and is ranked 28th all time with 657 tackles.  Now in the twilight of his career the veteran is mentoring the younger players.  Wesche had 74 tackles and a sack last year with Berlin but was surprisingly cut in the offseason which hurt - "If I played on offense they would have kept me (in a dig at Barnes/Black/Fear/Blundin) but any older guys on defense (Hoffman and Wesche) they seemed to get rid of" said an angry Wesche.

Wesche has been a backup this year and at LB5 has just 2 tackles on the year.  "Yeah I must admit I'm sad how it turned out, Season 12 I had 97 tackles and 6 sacks to lead my team, then 60 tackles, then 74 tackles last year and then I'm on the scrapheap" said Wesche.  "This year just 2 tackles !  I can play, i'm a great veteran, I'm stunned some of the 3-11/4-10 style teams in this league didnt want me when I was a FA".  "Dont get me wrong I'm happy to be a Fire player but I would love to start, I still have a lot of footbal left in me.  I didnt just lose it overnight" said Wesche.

[Niki]

GM Niki van den Berg

Admirals GM Van den Berg announced to the press that he is getting sick of all the injuries talks. "Injuries are a part of the game, you know before every game that player can get injured during that game. You can only hope you will not have too many during the season. Of course the back ups have less qualities but when it means that it will down grade your team, it also means that your team is not balanced" Niki also refused to give any comments on quotes from Austria GM Kreiner: "I am not going to say anything about it, it is not my job to create articles for the newspapers besides that you do not win games by saying things, he already put himself in a situation that he must win, if that is a way to motivate his players! Well maybe the players must realise that they play for a lot of money, which is a good motivation to play at your best every game" He also announced that he hopes to play against Fire in the final when they beat Austria: "It is simple; if we win I hope we will play Fire. Not because San Antonio is stronger! We never played against Birmingham so it would be nice to face a new team and the Admirals have a good relation with Birmingham. Yes it helps I know the GM of Birmingham. That is making it even nice to play against them. But first we have to see what the game of tomorrow will bring us!"

[Mario ADK]

yipiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

i´ll be EFC-Champion in about 20 hours or so.......

yubbadubbaduuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

 

[Paul-London]

Mario i dont know what to say !  If your Joe Namath prediction works then it will look great for you, but if you lose then you will have egg all over your face !

Good luck to both teams.  I cant wait to sim this game at 8am GMT tomorrow.  19 hours away !

[Mario ADK]

PAUL!!!

There are sooo many mistakes in your article regarding Austria:

1) Injured G Murphy is NOT a starter in the O-line, he was G3.
2) You talk of FB Powell but put the name of LB Welch in it.
3) Powell was signed B E F O R E the WC-game already and was playing HB2 in the WC-game where he took one handoff....
4) Powell will N O T be backup to Simonton as formerly injured David Allen is back and has already been promoted back to HB2 ==> i wrote you a mail with my roster changes yesterday....
5) Hatchette was not bruised last week, you simple messed my roster moves up and moved him to WR2 instead of WR1 in order to help Scotland to get away with the win. But it did not work out....

Men... those press-people.... *sigh*

[Mario ADK]

Mario i dont know what to say !  If your Joe Namath prediction works then it will look great for you, but if you lose then you will have egg all over your face !

Ohhhhh...... Mario Namath.
I like that.....

but you must admit that puts some fire into this league, right?
i defenitely enjoy playoff-time and i could and would take all those eg with dignity....

[Paul-London]

PAUL!!!

There are sooo many mistakes in your article regarding Austria:

1) Injured G Murphy is NOT a starter in the O-line, he was G3.
2) You talk of FB Powell but put the name of LB Welch in it.
3) Powell was signed B E F O R E the WC-game already and was playing HB2 in the WC-game where he took one handoff....
4) Powell will N O T be backup to Simonton as formerly injured David Allen is back and has already been promoted back to HB2 ==> i wrote you a mail with my roster changes yesterday....
5) Hatchette was not bruised last week, you simple messed my roster moves up and moved him to WR2 instead of WR1 in order to help Scotland to get away with the win. But it did not work out....

Men... those press-people.... *sigh*

Well i dont know if Murphy is a starter/backup or not, i presumed he was a starter as he got injured, you dont get too many G3's injured.

I couldnt remember when Powell was signed (i'm away from home) so i didnt realise it was the week before, my mistake.

As for Hatchette when trying to do an official EFC Championship Preview it seems a bit weird to say "Paul messed up the roster move by putting Hatchette at WR1 according to Marios email and instead accidentally put him at WR2' !!!  I know i messed up but when creating a FWL NFL based story I cant really put that can i so i put something about a slight injury to make it look realistic !!

[Niki]

PAUL!!!

and

5) Hatchette was not bruised last week, you simple messed my roster moves up and moved him to WR2 instead of WR1 in order to help Scotland to get away with the win. But it did not work out....

@Mario: maybe you do not realise it but paul write this articles fast, sometimes soem errors are in them but remember it is almost impossible for Paul to remember what where and when of all 18 teams!

about the WR mistake: I do not know how you send them to paul but now a days when I have a change in a line, I will provide Paul with the whole line up, it is easy to lose track during the changes when you have an overview of all WR on the new position (A wr1 Hatcahette (was I WR) A wr2 Moore (was A WR1) etc etc etc) it is so easier for Paul

Besides that I think it only helped you, Moore made some carches, hatchette had one big play but even better Hatchette is a much better punt returner then Moore. This kind of mistakes can be made! it happens from time to time, every team have had them in the past

[Mario ADK]

don´t take me too serious regarding this post, guys..
of course i knew that Paul was just inventing Hatchettes injury.

I am just in "pre-game" mode and quite nervous ;-)

[Paul-London]

Must admit it was bad though as it was a playoff game.  I looked at the rosters on the site and saw Welch at HB2 but thats because i havent updated the site.  I dont really do the roster changes until the day i run the games as its a bit of a pain to make the changes, do a teams.htm then upload it etc.

Thankfully over the years there havent been any major disasters, had a few problems in the past mostly when i let emails build up and up but when i have free time i try and do a batch at a time.

The worst ones are new seasons as the computer moves rosters about and puts players in different positions so thats a lot of work but on the whole its not too bad.  Even when Niki in the past changes his offensive line every week

[Niki]

Even when Niki in the past changes his offensive line every week

I was winning so I had to find the perfect match but the last two years I have not that many changes as I had in my first couple of seasons but must admit I was sometimes sorry when I sent out those changes, most of the times I provided you the changes a couple of days before game day! 

[Mario ADK]

yipiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

i´ll be EFC-Champion in about 20 hours or so.......

yubbadubbaduuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

 

EFC CHAMPION SEASON #15: AUSTRIA DARKKNIGHTS