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Press pause on the early-season championship chatter swirling around the Winnipeg Blue Bombers through the first chunk of the Canadian Football League campaign.

Winnipeg had its perfect 5-0 run to open the 2019 campaign come to a screeching halt in a 23-15 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in front of 23,512 at Tim Hortons Field Friday night in an ugly, mistake-filled affair in which most of the Bomber wounds were self-inflicted.

The Bombers turned the ball over a whopping seven times – three interceptions, three fumbles and a turnover on downs to end the game – with the mistakes leading to 14 Ticats points. Asked what bothered him the most about the loss after the game, Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea was brief:

“All of it. I don’t think we played very well and full credit to Hamilton. They took the ball away from us… and they made good on it by getting points out of that and we couldn’t find a way to get those back.”

Quarterback Matt Nichols entered the game on a streak of 19 consecutive pass completions end in a nanosecond, as a shovel pass on the Bombers first offensive possession was dropped by Lucky Whitehead. His second pass attempt was then intercepted and returned to the Bombers one-yard line, setting up a one-yard Dane Evans QB sneak.

By night’s end, Nichols – who had been so solid in protecting the football through a run of 10 straight regular season wins in games in which he had started – finished 29 of 48 for 261 yards with one TD strike to Darvin Adams and three interceptions.

“Tough loss,” began Nichols. “Good football team we just played against and I feel like it’s crazy that one ball slipping out of my hand early in the game is the difference in the game. I feel like my teammates played well enough to win tonight and I feel like I personally didn’t. But that’s all right – I’m a professional quarterback and that’s what I signed up for. Not everyone is going to be perfect. I’ll right the ship and get back and play better football next week.”

The Bombers managed to crank out 324 yards net offence to Hamilton’s 205, but also fumbled three times on kick returns that gift-wrapped points for a Ticats squad that lost starting pivot Jeremiah Masoli in the first quarter, but buckled down defensively after his exit.

The result dropped the Bombers to 5-1, while the Ticats now improve to 5-1. It also ended what had been the third-best start to a season in franchise history, after the 1960 squad opened 10-0 and the 1939 team cranked out eight straight wins out of the blocks.

“The goal isn’t to be undefeated,” reasoned linebacker Adam Bighill afterward. “The goal is to win the Grey Cup.”

Critical now for the Bombers is how they respond in the days ahead. The team is staying in Southern Ontario over the next few days in advance of Thursday’s meeting with the winless Toronto Argonauts at BMO Field.

“I’m hard on myself and will be for a day,” said Nichols. “I’ll watch the film tomorrow and then it will be gone and it will be back to the 1-0 mentality and back to work.

“In professional football you’re not going to win every game. I’ve been around football long enough to know that. It doesn’t make losing easy, it makes me hungry and wanting to get back to work. I’m happy we’re on a short week and we get to go play Toronto on Thursday.”

All the mistakes aside, the contest remained a one-score game until there were zeroes on the clock. The complexion of the game could have potentially changed early when Ticats quarterback Jeremiah Masoli went down in a heap while dropping back to pass. Masoli appeared to injure his knee and did not return after Hamilton had built a 14-0 lead. Masoli exited after completing six of seven for 59 yards, while being picked off on a two-point conversion attempt.

But the Ticats defence, missing linebacker Simoni Lawrence as he served the first of a two-game suspension, was stout as the Bombers were just 8-of-21 in second-down conversions of four yards or more.

“We need to stay on the field more and keep drives going. We can’t keep coming off the field like that and expect to win,” said centre Michael Couture. “You work on things, you have a gameplan and when it doesn’t get fully executed that hurts when you watch film.

“But once that film is done you have to flush it and move on.”

THE BIG STAT

7: Turnovers by the Bombers: three interceptions, three fumbles and a turnover on downs to end the game.

NOTABLE:

The Bombers inactive player was WR Chris Matthews… Both WR Darvin Adams (lower body) and DB Anthony Gaitor (upper body) were injured in the first half and did not return to the game. Kenny Walker replaced Adams and Chris Humes moved into Gaitor’s Dime-back spot. The Bombers then lost Drew Wolitarsky in the fourth quarter and he was replaced by Daniel Petermann. No injury updates are expected until Monday when the team returns to practice… When the Bombers fell behind following Hamilton’s opening possession it marked the first time they had trailed in a game since being down 23-21 in the third quarter of the Week 1 win over B.C.

NUMBERS GAME

2: Interceptions by Winston Rose, giving him five on the season and matching his total from last year.

8: Andrew Harris led all Bombers receivers with eight catches for 64 yards and added 53 yards on eight carries.

26%: The Bombers defence limited Hamilton to just six of 26 in second-down conversions , or 26 percent.

153: Winnipeg held Hamilton to just 153 yards passing on the night, with just 94 yards coming in the final three quarters.