PUTTING THE SQUEEZE ON
Vancouver Stealth’s Justin Salt, left, and defenceman Chris O’Dougherty, right, attack Saskatchewan Rush forward Adam Jones at SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon on Friday. It was the second home game for the Rush, who entered the contest with a 1-2 record.
The Saskatchewan Rush — twotime reigning National Lacrosse League champions — are still working out a few kinks through the early stages of the 2017 National Lacrosse League season.
Sure, on paper, the Rush may be even stronger than their championship squads of the past two years, but there are still a few creases to smooth out.
“It’s just a matter of putting it all together,” says Rush captain Chris Corbeil, whose squad surged past the visiting Vancouver Stealth 16-12 in NLL action Friday night before an announced crowd of 14,502 at Sasktel Centre in Saskatoon.
“Obviously we won the championship last year and then we lose a big part of our offence in Zack Greer but pick up a phenomenal lefty in (Adam) Jones and then a couple of big draft picks (Ryan Keenan, Mike Messenger) so, on paper, it’s a really good team.
“Lacrosse is finicky like that and with a league like the NLL, where there’s only nine teams, all the other teams are going to be really good and other teams got better in the off-season as well, so we have to continue working on improving and we can’t be complacent.”
Robert Church paced Saskatchewan with four goals and two assists, while Mark Matthews contributed eight assists. Jeff Cornwall had a hat trick, while Adam Jones and Curtis Knight scored two goals apiece.
Matthew Dinsdale, Jeremy Thompson, Adrian Sorichetti, Ben McIntosh and Ryan Dilks also scored for the Rush, now 2-2.
Vancouver falls to 2-3.
Every team is different, says Corbeil. There’s no playbook for chemistry.
“There’s no finite time table on that one,” he admits. “I usually find it easier for teams that don’t fly in. You get teams like Toronto and Vancouver and all their guys are local and able to practise throughout the week and stuff. We don’t have that luxury. We have limited time when we’re together on weekends.
“With a big cog like Jonesy coming in on offence, with his limited availability to practise, it becomes difficult and it takes some time, but we think things started to come together last week.
“Things seem to be coming around now and hopefully we can built on that.”
CHEMISTRY COOKING
Mark Matthews — the 6-foot-5, 230-pound offensive weapon — sees chemistry slowly building.
“For sure, I’ve seen it a little bit,” said Matthews. “We’ve got kind of a complex offence that needs a little time to know and really understand. Ryan’s been playing it for years under his dad. Jonesy is picking it up every game and every practice. So we’re moving forward on offence.”
Matthews says the key to success against teams like the Stealth comes down to merely “moving the ball and moving our feet.”
Corbeil says the key is “playing the game we want to play” as opposed to playing the game they want to play.
“Whoever is able to dictate the tempo is going to have success,” said Corbeil.
NEW FACES
Rush head coach Derek Keenan says the team is still getting used to some new faces at both ends.
“We’ve got a new guy back there in the back end in Mike Messenger, a rookie in the league,” Keenan points out. “First couple of games, we had some more communication stuff and the whole group wasn’t very good but that’s coming along.
“In the offensive end, we’ve got a couple of new guys — three if you count Matty Dinsdale who was on the practice roster last year and played a couple of games. There’s a lot of timing issues and it takes a lot of reps and work to get through that in both practice and games.”