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June 16, 2019

Upon Further Review | WPG 33, BC 23

Winnipeg Blue Bombers' Andrew Harris (33) runs the ball against the B.C. Lions during the second half of CFL football action in Vancouver, B.C., on Saturday June 15, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ben Nelms

Long before the curtain rose on their 2019 season, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were preaching the value of continuity on their coaching staff and on their roster.

The Canadian Football League can be a fairly transient league, after all, and in an offseason that saw some massive roster makeovers across the map, the Bombers were the picture of relative stability.

And Saturday night’s 33-23 victory over the B.C. Lions in Vancouver offered both evidence of that continuity and the inherent value in it. The Bombers are 1-0 today despite some mistakes in all three phases, but also because of the work of the familiar faces working in familiar schemes.

Offensively, it was Matt Nichols, Andrew Harris, Darvin Adams, Drew Wolitarsky, Stanley Bryant and Jermarcus Hardrick doing their thing, complimented by Michael Couture, Cody Speller and Geoff Gray up front.

On defence it was the likes of Adam Bighill, Drake Nevis, Jackson Jeffcoat, Craig Roh, Anthony Gaitor, Brandon Alexander and Marcus Sayles, helped by Kyrie Wilson, Winston Rose and Chandler Fenner.

And on special teams, which surrendered a kickoff-return TD that will surely rankle Mike O’Shea & Co., the Bombers had Kerfalla Exumé pop off the page in his first pro game with five special-teams tackles.

Interestingly, while nine Bombers made their CFL debuts Saturday night – Exumé was joined by fellow 2019 draft picks Nick Hallett, Brady Oliveira, Drew Desjarlais, as well as receivers Kenny Lawler and Lucky Whitehead, defensive tackle Steven Richardson, quarterback Sean McGuire and linebacker Thiadric Hansen – it was the continuity and comfort with the schemes that saw Nichols throw for three TDs, Harris rush for 148 yards, for the defence to pick off two Mike Reilly passes and blank the Lions in the fourth quarter, while limiting them to just four yards rushing on four carries.

The game’s first half and a chunk of the third featured the two sides punching and counter-punching, but the critical moments later in the game featured one jab after another by the Bombers en route to the win.

“The key is to just keep answering the call,” said Nichols. “There were a couple of opportunities there where they took some momentum and it would have been easy to not respond. I think offensively, defensively, special teams all responded at different times when we needed it.

“The interception by Jeff Hecht coming out at halftime sparked the whole thing going into the second half. Momentum is a dangerous thing and I think we did a good job of capitalizing on momentum and answering back when a couple of negative things happened for us. That’s what football is about. No matter what’s going on you keep your head down, keep chugging along and you’ll be where you want to be in the end.”

More on the Bombers season-opening win in our weekly post-game collection of notes and quotes we call UPON FURTHER REVIEW…

ALL EYES WERE ON THE INTERIOR OF THE BOMBERS O-LINE… when the game started, but they settled in quickly and scrapped and fought in front of Harris and Nichols. With Pat Neufeld on the one-game injured list and Stanley Bryant and Jermarcus Hardrick dominating at their tackle spots, the Bombers got good work from centre Michael Couture and guards Cody Speller and Geoff Gray.

The young guys have a standard to meet and with recently-retired centre Matthias Goossen in the building – he’s lost 60 pounds since joining the Delta Police Department, by the way – they picked up the torch and held it high.

“First one. We’ve got a lot more to go, but it felt great,” said Speller. “It was play fast, physical, fun and just go out there and let it ride. It’s Game 1. We’ve still got to make our identity. Every single week we’re going to come out and work our asses off.”

Added O’Shea:

“You know there’s going to be points in the game where it maybe didn’t go exactly as you drew it up. But we knew those guys were going to scrap in there. They’re a scrappy group, they’re smart, they’ll play hard. So, as long as they’re going to continue to battle if a mistake happens they’re going to rebound from it because they’re going to fight. I like that.

“We ran the ball very well. Matt could stand in there and deliver. I thought he escaped well, too, when he had to. Overall, I thought to O-line did a good job. I’m very happy for them.”

HARRIS — THE BOMBERS OFFENSIVE WORKHORSE – RUSHED FOR OVER 100 YARDS for the 22nd time in his career. Only 10 other CFL running backs since 1950 have had more – Mike Pringle (73), George Reed (66), Charles Roberts (38), Johnny Bright (36), Joffrey Reynolds (31), Dave Thelen (30),  Earl Lunsford (28), Willard Reaves and Lovell Coleman (26) and George Dixon (24).

“I’m really proud of the offensive line, they handled what B.C. was bringing in the blitz game and in the run game,” said Harris. “There were some nice holes for me early on and at the end of the game, too. We still have to grow and get better. (Saturday) was a step in the right direction, but we still have to improve as we go along here.”

THE BOMBERS SERVED UP A BALANCED ATTACK as Nichols completed 21 of 33 for 184 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions and the ground game finished with 170 rushing yards for 348 yards net offence. The Lions, meanwhile, had 324 yards passing, but just four rushing yards.

“I felt like LaPo (offensive coordinator Paul LaPolice) had a good gameplan,” said Nichols. “It’s kinda tough because with a couple new coordinators and a bunch of new personnel on their defence you didn’t really know Week 1 what their plan was going to be. I thought we had a good plan that handled everything and converted some good second downs and finished off drives with touchdowns instead of field goals which was key. If we’re not finishing those drives off with seven and only getting threes it might be a different game there at the end.

“We’ve been really focusing on finishing up drives with touchdowns and I thought we did good job of that.”

THE OTHER AREA UNDER THE MICROSCOPE… heading into the season was the secondary, where Winston Rose, Chandler Fenner and Jeff Hecht replaced Chris Randle, Kevin Fogg and Taylor Loffler.

Reilly did throw for 324 and one TD, but Hecht’s two second-half interceptions led to a Bomber score and then came with 4:26 left and the club protecting a 10-point lead.

Hecht, you may recall, was added by the Bombers last July after an injury to Derek Jones and has now morphed into a starter.

“This is my intention,” said Hecht. “When I re-signed this was my intention, to compete for a starting job and when I got it my intention was to come out here and be an impact player instead of just play by the system and play clean. Sometimes you’ve got to be a playmaker. That’s a goal of mine this season for sure.”

Hecht is a solid communicator, too, and that’s a big reason why he has earned the starting chores. Asked about the passing yards surrendered, he said:

“The most important thing is the points and we had more than them, so he could throw for 5,000 yards in a game and it doesn’t really matter to us. It’s good for the guys and their individual statistics, it looks good on (defensive coordinator) Richie (Hall) if we keep the number low, but we’re here to win football games.

“The yards are an indication we’re not playing clean football yet. We’re making a lot of mistakes and there were a couple of missed assignments that they capitalized big time on. It gives us a lot to work on going into the bye, which is good, kinda humbling and will help keep our feet grounded.

“… We need to be better in that sense. We’re going to be.”

ONE MORE ON HECHT… from O’Shea, who pointed out that the Bombers successful challenge of a Reilly-to Shaq Johnson with six minutes remaining came from a suggestion from the Bombers safety.

“He’s smart,” O’Shea said. “You can see in the meeting room he’s got lots of experience, he’s been coached well for the amount of time he’s been in this league.

“The one thing that’s going to get left out is he’s the one who called that challenge and said the ball was on the ground. He had a good view of it, I didn’t, so you’ve got to believe in your players and trust them. It was a great call and that’s as big as anything.”

KERFALLA EXUMÉ HAD QUITE THE COMING-OUT PARTY in his CFL debut, as the University of Montreal Carabins product finished with five special-teams tackles (the club record, FYI, is seven, and was set by Brendan Rogers in 1994).

A lot of fans watching the game had two questions: 1) Who is No. 41 for the Bombers? (Answer: Exumé) and 2) Who is Kerfalla Exumé?

Well, Exumé was an eighth-round selection of the Bombers, 70th overall, in this year’s draft – only three other players were taken after him – and the club selected him specifically because of his special-teams abilities.

Here’s what GM Kyle Walters said of Exumé the day after the draft this May: “When we went through and watched his special-teams film… you could make the case that out of anybody he was the best special-teams player at the draft with his want-to and his attitude. He’ll be much more further along than other guys on special teams because he’s done it at the U Sports level.”

ONE OF THE STRANGEST PLAYS OF THE NIGHT was also one of the most important. The Lions had just taken a 23-21 lead in the third quarter on the Reilly-to-Durant strike when Sergio Castillo’s ensuing convert attempt was blocked, gobbled up by Brandon Alexander who then lateraled it to Fenner, who returned it 80 yards for what is called a defensive two-point convert.

That tied the game and helped change the momentum.

“They did a double move and scored, but you can’t think about it,” said Fenner. “You’ve got to have a short-term memory. On the next play I had the opportunity to get the ball in my hands and score for my team and that’s what I did. I was looking up at the screen to see if somebody was chasing me so I was just ready to run. I just ran down and tried to take that six points they scored and make it four points. I just wanted to get back out there and do something for my team.

“It really shows the connection we have with guys in the defensive backfield. It’s not necessarily anything we practice that often, it’s just everybody knew where to go because we have that connection.”

WE’LL GO BACK TO FENNER FOR THE LAST WORD as he succinctly summed up what was an intriguing opening night win for the Bombers.

“This is a tough place to play, that is a good quarterback, a good offence,” he said. “We came in here and they threw some punches at us, but we punched right back and showed some really good resiliency with our defence.

“We overcame a lot out there… they got some first downs, they scored some points but nobody was down on ourselves. We were ready to rally and pull out a win.”