You've clearly never seen a good Halfling team play, mate. Lemme tell you about the best match I ever saw.

It was the Green-Leaf Toeclippers vs. the Sanguine Chalice (Vampires, obviously)

Halflings win the toss and decide to receive the kickoff. They fumble the ball a bit but manage to get it. Then they pass it to good old Sammy Blackfoot who runs up centre flanked by half the team, including one of those bloody great trees they like to field! He ducks and dives around the vampires and runs clear... And straight into more vamps and thralls. They knock down his support before beating the shit out of him and he barely survives. The ball goes wide as Sammy is dragged off the pitch by his ankles.

Sanguine pick up the ball, one of their guys jumps over the Halfling defence (it's not hard, is it?) and runs to the touch line. They pass long, he catches aaaand... Runs off the pitch for a snack, leaving the ball behind (vampires, eh?).

So the ball's there, right by the touch line. Cefer Yewbranch and Tommy Shindip both run back for it (well, Cefer just sort of plods - he's a tree) and they arrive at about the same time and Tommy grabs the ball (trees don't have the most dexterous limbs). But there's not long left on the clock. Definitely not long enough to run up the length of pitch and halflings can't throw that far. What's worse is that the rest of the vamps are bearing down on the two of them. So what do they do?

So Cefer picks up Tommy and throws him! Half the length of the pitch. Tommy sails through the air over most of the vampire team (who just stand there with their fangs out) and you shoulda seen him, his legs are kicking wildly and he flips and he flips and then he lands it! The bugger lands it! He hits the ground running and hurtles into Ronnie Dewburst and drops the ball right into his hands before collapsing from dizziness.

So Ronnie's in the clear. He runs right up to the touch line and scores it! The Halflings go wild!

Unfortunately for Ronnie, the vampire team don't take too kindly to spectacular plays like that and in the second half they outright attack the Toeclippers and manage to drain Ronnie completely dry.

So then the ref sends all the vamps off the pitch for unsportsmanly behaviour and the Sanguine Chalice is forced to call the match there and then. The Green-Leaf Toeclippers win 1-0 and the crowd enjoy every minute of the match. The halflings get to go home happy too. One death and 3 brutal injuries is a relatively good outcome, especially considering that the sponsors are gonna be lining up out the door after that, meaning that the families of the dead and injured can be well compensated.

So yeah. Halflings compete because they put on a show, win or lose. And when they win, oh is it wonderful!