Offence, defence come up big for Ticats against Bombers
The best defence is a good offence. Especially if that offence has the help of a good defence.
With June Jones continuing to featureCanadian running backs, his receivers continuing to catch footballs and Jeremiah Masoli continuing to catch hearts, it’d easy to overlook what the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ defence has contributed to the team’s first 2-1 record in nine years.
There was some defensive bend, but not a whole bunch of break, when the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers had the wind in the first and fourth quarters of Friday’s 31-17 Ticat victory.
But in the pivotal second and third quarters, when the Ticats defence had to make sure their offence could get the ball in order to make the most of the usual brisk Tim Hortons Field wind, they were as strong as the other product this city is best known for.
“It was so cool,” veteran linebacker Simoni Lawrence beamed in a super-charged Ticat locker room after the game. “They came out and weren’t doing anything we practiced against because they probably knew what we
thought they were going to do. The way coach (Jerry Glanville) adjusted on the sideline, he knew exactly what they were doing and counter-punched them right in the face.
“It was frickin’ amazing. Coach makes the adjustments and we make the frickin’ plays.”
After the Bombers took a 10-7 lead early in the second quarte the Ticat defence didn’t allow them a first down the rest of the way to the intermission, frustrating the Bombers and rookiesensation quarterback Chris Streveler.
They set Masoli and the offence up for two late scores in the first half, and it wasn’t their fault that they turned only into field goals, not touchdowns. Eight points or more were let slip there which, had they been converted, would have made the final quarter of this one a little less tense for the local heroes.
Then, in the third quarter, the Cats’ defence permitted the Bombers’ offence just eight— repeat, eight—total yards while Masoli controlled the clock and the ball as Hamilton built the 31-10 lead.
What you were looking at here was 28 minutes without a first down against. Every time the local offence got off the field, their defence put them right back on it. You can win an awful lot of games with that kind of thing going on.
There was good play up front with a pair of sacks and Lawrence led with seven defensive tackles. And the back end, pierced for big plays in the first halves of both Alberta games, was tight and organized.
But the main accomplishment was the one Jones and his defensive lieutenant Glanville wanted to achieve: they held the Bombers’ potentially lethal run game in check.
The Bombers got only 60 yards overland in the first half and just eight yards in the third quarter. The 21-point lead limited the rushing Winnipeg could insert into their attempt at a fourth-quarter comeback.
“The defence did what they had to do,” Jones said afterward.
A thirddown play by the Bombers made a first by a measured inch with just over a minute to go at the Ticats three-yard line, leaving the Bombers with some chance to win or tie, but the clock had become their enemy. Big time, so to speak.
And the little hope Winnipeg had ended emphatically when first-year Ticat Julian Howsare, replacing defensive end Adrian Tracy, who was injured early, knocked down Streveler’s desperation third-down attempt.
We’re only a bit more than 15 per cent into the season, but there just might be something going on here.