REGINA - There were lots of positives to point to in the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ home opener against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but it was the bad moments that lingered afterwards.
One moment that stung deeply during that 45-27 Riders loss to the Bombers on Friday happened during the third quarter. With the Riders only down 24-21, the team punted the ball to the Winnipeg 20 yard line. There it was picked up by Jamarion Grant, who then inexplicably was able to dodge one missed Roughrider tackle after another and run 90 yards all the way into the end zone.
But a flag was thrown for an illegal Winnipeg block, seemingly wiping out the great return for a touchdown. That prompted a challenge from Winnipeg, and after a lengthy review by the command centre in Toronto, they came back with their decision. They reviewed all the blocks by Winnipeg and all were deemed legal. Touchdown, Winnipeg.
The extra point made it 31-21, and the Roughriders never really recovered after that. After the game in the media conference, Head Coach Craig Dickenson agreed that play was a “backbreaker” for them.
“That broke our backs, because we had them. And I think our guys stopped playing a little bit, too, and that’s on us to coach that better, but when they see a flag out there they know what it is. They instinctively, I think, slow down a little bit… we’ll have to coach that out of them, for sure, because there is the ability to challenge that. That was a tough, tough reversal. We should’ve covered better, but that hurts, seeing that go the other way.”
The Riders also fell victim to a couple of costly pass interference penalties that led to Winnipeg touchdowns, and bogged down on late drives late in the game. The defence also had their struggles. After the Roughriders defence had held the Edmonton Elks the previous week to 13 points in a dominant win, they ended up being lit up for 45 this week.
It was the offence that kept the Roughriders competitive in the early going. Quarterback Trevor Harris had been a game time decision following his hip pointer injury suffered against Edmonton, and whether he would get the start dominated headlines throughout the week.
Harris told reporters that as of Tuesday he felt like there was only a “five per cent chance” of him playing, as he was “struggling to get off the couch.”
But he said he did two treatments with his ARP machine and felt significantly better, and then woke up on day four and told the coach “I’m good, man, you don’t need to list me as whatever. I’m going to play.”
In the end, Harris didn’t look like an injured man on the field, completing 28 of 41 passes for 407 yards and three touchdowns. The three touchdown passes landed in the hands of Samuel Emilus, who had an outstanding game at wide receiver for the Roughriders.
Afterwards, the reaction from Roughriders players was disappointment, but hardly discouragement. Instead, they looked to build on the positives and right the ship in their next game on June 24 in Calgary.
“We did some good things,” said Harris. “You need to do a lot better in terms of finishing those last two drives… even the very last one being able to put a touchdown on the board.”
Roughriders Head Coach Craig Dickenson:
“It was a game of adversity that’s for sure… We played well the first half. Second half we ran out of a juice a little bit. And credit to Winnipeg, that’s a championship calibre team that just wears you down and they found a way to grind out the win, but I thought our guys played hard. We were a little shorthanded that second half — we lost a lot of guys and we just wore out. So, proud of the effort of our team. We need to get in a little better shape and we need to make sure we get healthy this week. That’s my main concern is we gotta get healthy for Calgary.”
Quarterback Trevor Harris:
“It’s neither here nor there, it’s a loss and we’ll watch the film, make the corrections and move on… This one sucks. You know, you want to win at home, especially in an electric environment like this one tonight. The only thing now is we aren’t going to be undefeated. We’ve got a locker room full of guys that aren’t going to flinch and are going to stick together. That’s a genetic make up of this team, and I think when you have a first loss, you find out a lot about your team -- you could hear a lot of motivation in the locker room. A lot of guys wanted to go out and get a workout in right now, and I hadn’t heard something like that since like high school. To hear a grown man say that, we’ve got a lot of people that care.”
On throwing for 400 yards:
“I’d trade it obviously for the win. That’s ‘cause that’s what matters is wins and losses. Yeah, frustrating that we didn’t get the win here. I felt pretty good physically and didn’t have anything (for) bumps and bruises, so we’re full steam ahead. I really like this team and I think the fans of this province (are) going to like the end result as we go through our year, throughout the year, but obviously not good enough tonight. Zach Collaros is one heck of a football player. I think everybody knows that, but when you play this position and watch him do what he does, he’s special…
“They’re a team that if you don’t capitalize on every mistake and if you’re not on your Ps and Qs for a full 60 minutes, they are going to hurt you.”
Receiver Samuel Emilus:
“It’s a tough one. I feel like we had the game. We just, you know, second half they took it from us and we could not get it. Next week we’ll all be ready.”
On the three touchdowns:
“It felt good man, I’ve been waiting for that moment… I already put big expectations on myself, so I was coming out of training camp, I was already ready, like, to prove that I can do what I needed to do.”
Running back Jamal Morrow
On the game: “Roller coaster. You know it started very well and then down, up and down, up and down… A lot of good things to learn from this game offensively. We took some strides from last week, so we’ve got to keep on improving from that.”
Offensive lineman Evan Johnson
On Winnipeg: “They’re just a team you really can’t make mistakes against, they capitalize off of them, and I think we made some mistakes in the second half. You know, the return in the second half was huge (to) kind of swing that momentum, for sure.”
On what they need to do next week against Calgary: “Just execution. Just understanding you need to execute at a high level, especially when you’re going against these the good teams like that, it usually comes down to the team that executes the best. I mean, there’s good players on that side, there’s good players on this side, so it’s just about whoever is going to come out and execute the best.”
