It’s now all about the road straight ahead for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and in that respect they were all joyously singing from that same songbook following their Western Final victory Sunday in Regina.
And their chorus goes along the lines of this: One more game, one more step to take, one more win for glory.
Still, a team doesn’t get to the Grey Cup without taking an occasional peek back at the road already traveled. And for the Bombers – the Canadian Football League’s West Division flag bearers after Sunday’s dramatic 20-13 win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders – that road began with kilometre after kilometre of perfect blacktop, but was then followed by stretches of potholes, roadblocks and mechanical failures.
This is a team that rocketed to a 5-0 start and was 9-3 record at the two-thirds mark of the regular season. But, among other setbacks, Matt Nichols was lost for the season due to a shoulder injury, Andrew Harris sat down for two games and just as quickly as the bandwagon had emptied in a 2-4 record to end the regular season, it is now filling up again with the club headed to Calgary for the 107th Grey Cup game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Yet, as Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said on the eve of the Western Final, all those ups and downs – the joy, the heartache, the dramatic wins and painful losses – are ultimately all part of what has the club here in the championship game now.
That theme was still present when O’Shea and Zach Collaros met with the media following Sunday’s win. The Bombers, looking to become the first team to finish third in their division and win the Grey Cup since the 2005 Edmonton Eskimos, have taken two huge steps with playoff wins in Calgary and Saskatchewan.
The biggest step is the next one against the Ticats, who beat the Bombers twice this season and posted the CFL’s best record at 15-3.
“I don’t know if we even talk about the road games,” said O’Shea. “We got two wins that we needed and we’ve got a lot of work left to do. Hamilton’s a very good football team so we’ve got to make sure we stick to our process, our preparation, and try to avoid all the noise a Grey Cup brings and think about this as a football game and not about the Grey Cup which is tough to do.
“What were they, 15-3? That’s their record for a reason. And they got us twice this year. Our coaches will do a great job preparing our guys; our guys will be ready to go. They’ll be ready physically, they’ll be prepared mentally and we’ll go out and we’ll see who executes better.”
The Bombers will be wheels up for Calgary Tuesday afternoon and what will follow will be a uber-busy week in which the media attention gets magnified. One of the mid-week highlights comes Thursday, when the club also has three players up for the Most Outstanding Player Awards in Willie Jefferson (Defence), Stanley Bryant (Offensive Lineman) and Mike Miller (Special Teams). But, to a man, they’ll all insist that while there may be distractions, this is simply another business trip.
More on Sunday’s crazy win in the Western Final in our weekly collection of notes and quotes we call UPON FURTHER REVIEW…
LET’S TALK ABOUT THOSE LAST THREE MINUTES AGAIN… because what a completely bonkers finish to that game. Just to recap briefly, the Bombers had two goal-line stands in the final minutes, with Mercy Maston and Adam Bighill wrapping up Riders QB Cody Fajardo on a third-and-one gamble from the Winnipeg one-yard line with 2:37 left, and then Fajardo’s pass attempt to Kyran Moore clanged off the crossbar on the game’s last play.
In those final three minutes, the Riders ran 11 offensive plays to Winnipeg’s four and also had two fan bases at full throat. Included in that crazy finish was a forced fumble on Fajardo that was reviewed by the command centre and over-turned and an opportunity for Marcus Sayles to end the game with an interception with 27 seconds left… only to have the ball slip through his hands and into those of Moore for a 19-yard gain.
“I tell ya, it’s easy to believe in our guys,” said O’Shea when asked about the ending. “We’re going to find a way to get it done. I know there was a crossbar and that’s kind of anti-climatic (Collaros interjected for a second with ‘it’s the Canadian way’), but if that film travelled across North America, how could anybody not love our game?”
“Man… I have never experienced a game like that,” added Kenny Lawler, who had the game’s only TD on a 26-yard pass from Collaros. “Close game, it came down to the last second and in the Western Final… never had one like that. My nerves, a lot of emotions, a lot of hope, a lot of praying.”
He wasn’t alone.
“Lights out, man,” said Andrew Harris of the Bombers defence. “I was joking with our strength and conditioning coach Brayden (Miller) that this is where it comes down to the weight room in coming up big at the goal line. And to do it twice is absolutely lights out. I’m definitely proud of those guys.
“I didn’t think anything was going against us. We had faith. I’m already getting greys in my beard and there’s definitely some more coming out right now from that game. It was definitely nerve-wracking, the most dramatic game I’ve been a part of. I’m just happy to be on the winning side.”
FLUSH THIS… those final three minutes were a testament to the old saying that a player has to learn to flush plays, both the good and bad, from snap to snap. But saying and doing, clearly, are two different things.
“We’re in a position where it was win or go home,” said safety Brandon Alexander. “It was the Western Final… you step up and you go to the Grey Cup or you go home. You can’t hang your head on anything.
“You can’t be overwhelmed by the moment. They get first downs, they get accidental first downs… we just wanted one more play to be able to make a change. And that’s what happened. Sayles dropped a pick on the sidelines and they ended up making a catch. I could have had a better hand on that ball in the end zone, but we had one more play on each and every one.”
ONE MORE FROM HARRIS, WHEN ASKED ABOUT THIS SIGN… which was featured on the Bombers in and around the Bombers locker room:
Spotted on a #Bombers equipment trunk this morning: pic.twitter.com/YLL4Gm4U78
— Ed Tait (@EdTaitWFC) November 18, 2019
“Look at the welts. It’s punch first, keep swinging and stay in the fight. That’s our mantra. We like dogfights, so for us we’ve faced a lot of adversity. We’re used to that and I feel like we strive in those tough situations.”
THERE ARE A LOT OF COMPELLING STORYLINES FOLLOWING THE BOMBERS… to the 107th Grey Cup, but likely none juicier than that of Collaros. Former Ticat, former Roughrider, former Argonaut, kicked to the curb in Saskatchewan, shipped to Winnipeg in what many believe will be a ‘rental’ situation with him returning to the Argos for next season.
He’s not only breathed life into the Bombers late this season – the team is 3-0 in his starts, two of them in the playoffs – but he’s also resuscitated his career in the process.
“I touched on it earlier in the week and I said I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel some extra motivation,” said Collaros Sunday night of beating the Riders and now heading to the Grey Cup with his new team. “I know I bore you guys, but I say this every week as well: after the first few plays you’re just playing football again and you’ve got to settle in and just do your job.
“Leading up to it, it was definitely exciting, but after that first one you’re just out there one play at a time and you’re just trying to execute the play call.”
Interestingly, this will also be the first time Collaros faces the Ticats since the hit by Simoni Lawrence in the first game of the regular season that not only saw the linebacker get suspended, but sidelined the veteran quarterback until his first start for the Bombers on October 25th.
Collaros, FYI, wouldn’t go there about facing Lawrence when asked about the motivation that match-up might provide.
“I don’t play one-on-one,” he said “It’s a total team thing. We’re excited for the challenge. Hamilton’s a really good football team. We’ve got our work cut out for us. It starts with the preparation and we’re excited to get back to doing that.”
THE BOMBERS STILL HAVE ONE MORE CHAPTER TO WRITE… but excuse Jake Thomas for taking a moment to soak up the scene in the visitor’s locker room Sunday. The Bombers veteran defensive tackle will be heading to his first Grey Cup in eight years after being drafted by the club in the fourth round of the 2012 CFL Draft. That makes him the longest-serving Bomber never to have played in a Grey Cup – until now.
Worth noting is this will also be Pat Neufeld’s first trip to the Cup. This is his ninth CFL season, the first three spent with the Riders. He was acquired by the Bombers from the Riders in a trade in 2013 – 45 days before Saskatchewan knocked off Hamilton to win the championship.
“It’s all pretty surreal, especially the way the game ended,” said Thomas. “I was debating whether I was going to even watch the last play (he was on the sideline for that snap). I decided to watch it. It’s just so surreal.
“I think as a team we’ve really grown this year. Obviously we’re pretty fired up right now, but we’ll quickly get our focus. Looking around and hugging everyone, I’m looking at a guy like Nick Hallett who is in his first year. I couldn’t imagine that. For me it took eight years and this is his first.
“The excitement he has is real, the excitement everyone has is real. I’m pretty fired up. We’ll enjoy the win, obviously, but we’re not done yet. Our end goal is to win the Grey Cup, not to just go to the Grey Cup”
TWO NOTES ON SPECIAL-TEAMS HEROES… beginning with the work of Justin Medlock, who was good on all four of his field goal attempts from 32, 13, 43 and 42 yards. Medlock is eight-for-eight now in these playoffs, on a streak of 20 straight dating back to September and now has a career playoff percentage of 89.5 (34 of 38).
“You always want to step up in these kind of games and play well,” said the man nicknamed ‘Money.’ “I’ve been feeling like I’ve been in a groove all year, to be honest. There have been different changes… different holder, different snappers, it can mess with you. Just keep going. Keep trusting the process.
“But obviously, there are a couple of things I’d like to have back and we’ve got to be better… a bad play at the end by our whole unit. But when I needed to step up I thought I hit some good ones. We just have to be a little bit better next week.”
THAT ‘BAD PLAY’ CAME ON A PUNT RETURN THAT PROBABLY LOOKED FAMILIAR… to Bombers fans, as the club ran the same thing for a Maurice Leggett touchdown against the Riders in the Banjo Bowl a couple of years ago.
The Riders return unit drew the Bombers cover team to one side by pretending the returner waiting there was getting the ball. Unfortunately, the kick headed to the returner on the right side – Nick Marshall – who cranked out a 58-yard score if not for a superb play by Shayne Gauthier.
“They ran the exact same one we ran against them,” said Medlock. “They knew I go that direction… they ran everybody like it was going to the other side and they sold it. As soon as I saw it I was like, ‘Ohhhhh….’ I was just screaming. That was a tough.”
“Shayne Gauthier is a hell of a man,” added O’Shea. “I mean, you want to talk about any particular play in this game, talk about Number 44, Shayne Gauthier, running down a returner who’s got a lead on him and securing a tackle and preventing a score. That’s as big a play as you’ll ever see.
“That was a great play on their part… from our side, we would say we made some grave mistakes that we need to clean up. We’re not a real young punt team, we’ve got some smart guys, and we didn’t do our job. But Shayne Gauthier.. I mean, that’s a big a play as you’ll see in that game.
“A lot of games come down to, as I’ve said many times before, one or two plays. That’s a net of one or two… there are nine on one side and 10 or 11 on the other side. That was going to be one of their big ones… it was a big one. It didn’t end up turning out to be the biggest because Shayne did a great job of stopping it.”
QUICK WEATHER NOTE… the forecast for Calgary this week looks spectacular, with Wednesday’s high of -1C the coldest over the next few days. The temperatures are expected to range from 7-12C, with Sunday’s forecast calling for a mix of sun and cloud and a high of 7C.
Asked if he would monitor the weather in Calgary and decide whether to practice indoors or outdoors, O’Shea looked at his inquisitor as if he had two heads.
“We will be outside,” he said. “We do not go indoors.”
Added Collaros with a chuckle: “We do not.”
To which, O’Shea replied: “We will NOT go indoors.”
AND, FINALLY… it was put to O’Shea that since he has been with the club since 2014 he would have a good sense of what the Western Final might mean to the fan base. His answer?
“It means we’re one step closer. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to be satisfied, nor will we, unless we handle our business.”
