STEVE MILTON GAME PREVIEW

A Grey Cup berth is on the line here Sunday afternoon when the Ottawa Redblacks try to beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for the fourth time in 2018

OTTAWA — In their previous three meetings it was mostly win and get home, in the fourth it’s win or go home.

A Grey Cup berth is on the line here Sunday afternoon when the

Ottawa Redblacks try to beat the Hamilton TigerCats for the fourth time in 2018.

Without those three games between them, the Ticats had more wins than losses and the Redblacks were a .500 club.

But there is no world in which those three games — two close ones, followed by a lopsided Ottawa win in Hamilton — do not exist, so with them the Redblacks get to host the CFL East Final for the third time in four years. Football wisdom says it’s difficult for one team to beat another four times in a year, but it also says it’s hard to do it three times. And Ottawa did.

“I haven’t got caught up in that, just because it’s a playoff game now,” Ottawa head coach Rick Campbell said Friday. “The only thing I take away from the games we’ve played against Hamilton this year — and it’s not just against them — it’s winning those close games. Two of the three came down to the last series and we were able to win those, and that’s a confidence thing. It’s being prepared and also having a bit of luck, too.”

Including victories over Hamilton by six and four points, the Redblacks were 5-2 in games decided by eight points or fewer. The Ticats went 1-6.

So often the Ticats had a chance to win a close one, but were done in by penalties, a missed play or the turnover ratio.

Last week’s 48-8 drubbing of the B.C. Lions may have signalled some kind of turnaround in that department, as they derived 31 points from forcing six turnovers, while surrendering none.

But they manhandled the Lions in late September, too, and three weeks later were victims of Trevor Harris and his stupendous second-half comeback. It’s

only a week between B.C. and Ottawa this time, so maybe the momentum will decide to hang around.

“When you get on a certain kind of roll, everything just starts happening,” says high-energy Ticat linebacker Simoni Lawrence.

“That’s what we need to get into in Ottawa. Whenever you start making plays, everything keeps stacking up and stacking up.”

Neither Campbell nor Ticat head coach June Jones thinks the other will change much, at least philosophically, for this elimination match.

Expect, then, that the Redblacks will try to establish running back William Powell, especially since there’s been a lot of snow, ice and frigid air pounding Ottawa’s Glebe district this week. With 1,362 yards, Powell finished second to Winnipeg’s Andrew Harris in individual rushing and accounted for the greatest portion (80.5 per cent) of his team’s rushing yardage by anyone in the CFL.

And expect Harris to again probe the wide side of the Hamilton defence. He was devastatingly effective going there in Ottawa’s victory in the pivotal second meeting, and the Ticats’ starting field corner Jumal Rolle, who’s had a commendable debut CFL season, is out for this game.

“I feel they’re going to attack as much as they can to the field side,” says Josh Johnson, who’ll play field halfback.

“We just have to be aggressive, get hands on them. The biggest thing is that we have to make the plays when they come to us. We gave them a lot of opportunities to make just easy catches. We have to contest.”

Jones praises the ability of the Ottawa line to both protect Harris and promote Johnson. That keys a quick-set, high-tempo offence so the onus will be on the Ticats’ defensive front to force the Ottawa quarterback out of his rhythm and comfort zone. And it’s on the secondary to play tighter and tougher when they know, from a blitz call, that the ball’s coming out quickly.

Conversely, Jeremiah Masoli and his receivers have to convert drives into majors. They haven’t scored a touchdown against Ottawa in the last 94 minutes of play.

“When I look at Hamilton I see a team that has responded well to adversity, that seems to be playing their best ball of the season just at the right time,” says Ottawa defensive back Rico Murray, who was four years a Ticat before becoming an Argonaut and, this year, a Redblack.

“Jeremiah’s got a gunslinger mentality. He’s a dual-threat quarterback.”

If they want to reach the Grey Cup for the first time in four years the Ticats are going to need that duality, and lots more from everyone else, against a team that has had their number — as in “three” — all year.