In a rematch of last year’s Desert Bowl, the Abu Dhabi Wildcats and Dubai Stallions meet as the latter look to avoid consecutive losses.

After rolling through the 2013/14 campaign with a 5-0-1 record, Stal­lions fell short in the championship to Wildcats. More so than revenge, the Stallions are now hoping for a win in Al Ain to keep from falling into a 0-2 hole.

Improvement on offence will be key after quarterback Markas Mor­ton completed only three passes in the opener and the Stallions scored just seven points.

It won’t get any easier this week against the Wildcats, who allowed six points to the Al Ain Desert Foxes in week one.

Wildcats coach Charles Gillespie said: “The Stallions in the first game did a lot of the same things they did last year, so we just have to go out and play Wildcat football to the best of our abilities. The best way you can respect your opponent is by go­ing out and giving your best effort and that’s what we plan to do.”

Maybe the only area Wildcats were lacking in during the opener was discipline. They were flagged repeatedly and had two players ejected for throwing punches.

So in practice leading up to this week’s game, the mental aspect wasn’t overlooked. “We were just focused on improving, working on discipline and getting fewer penal­ties. That’s it,” said Gillespie.

The Stallions’ defence has the unfortunate task of going from fac­ing perhaps the league’s best pass­ing attack in the Barracudas, to the league’s best running game in the Wildcats. 

The Al Ain Desert Foxes host the Dubai Barracudas on Friday evening in a battle of two teams looking to overcome a lack of depth.

Both squads are low on numbers and using players in various posi­tions. But while Barracudas were able to rely on their high-octane offence to nab a win in their open­er, Al Ain suffered their seventh straight loss dating back to last year.

For the Barracudas, the 14-7 win over city rivals Stallions was a favourable start to the new season, but the margin of victory could have been much more if not for sev­eral mistakes and turnovers.

With another week to get his players up to speed, Barracudas coach Kyle Jordan is expecting a more solid outing in today’s match-up at the Al Ain Club for the Disabled.

“It was just firming up people’s understanding and recall of the assignments on each play and in each defensive formation, scheme or play-call that we had,” Jordan said of the week’s practices. “We had a lot of guys that were 65 to 75 per cent on what they were doing from play to play.”

Though the Desert Foxes have been at the bottom of the Emirates American Football League stand­ings the past two years, they were feisty against the Abu Dhabi Wild­cats in week one.

For Sharp, the Desert Foxes are a work in progress and the regular season gives them the chance to steadily improve before peaking when it matters most.

“The advantage you have in this league is that we already know we’re in the playoffs,” said Sharp.

 “So as a coach, it puts me in the position where I want to win every game, but I look at every game as a scrimmage. My goal is to win two games – the playoff game and the championship.”