This past Saturday, our beloved Black and Gold finally got off the shnide and won their first game of the season; decisively defeating the Riders 33-3 in front of a crowd of 22,245 who passed through the turnstyles at Steeltown's Bastion on Balsam. While those in attendance -- which included the usual splotches of Green and White that seems to appear whenever the 3-time Grey Cup champions take their travelling road show outside of the safe harbour of Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field -- enjoyed what turned out to be optimal weather conditions for a mid-summer Saturday afternoon contest, the action on the field turned out to be a match-up of extreme ineptitude with spotty patches of excellent playmaking.
The game appeared to be a complete abomination when the only scoring in the opening 15 minutes came off the foot of TiCats kicker Justin Medlock, who punched the ball through the uprights three times in the opening frame. One of the field goals was the result after the Tabbies were given a gift of having the ball on the Riders' 6 when Reanud Williams picked off a struggling Darian Durant. Unfortunately, the Kevin Glenn-lead offence weren't able to cross the plane of the goal line. Combine that with the disaster in Commonwealth last week, and I was thinking Glenn's channelling of Nealon Greene was still ongoing. Fortunately, that would begin to change in the next quarter.
In the second fifteen, Glenn and company began to shred a seemingly hollow Rider defence; culminating with #5 finding wideout Chris Williams twice in the quarter. By the time the halftime gun sounded, I was astonished to find our beloved TiCats up 23-0 on the reigning two-time Grey Cup finalists, and thought that Ivor Wynne had slipped into a portal and we had ended up in Bizarro World. I thought surely the Riders would come back in the closing 30 minutes and make it more of a closer contest. The reply I ended up getting was, "Not this time around, and don't call me 'Shirley'."
The defence returned to the fine form I have grown to know and respect over the past two seasons; a squadron I thought during the first two games this year had become lost when former DC Greg Marshall bolted for "The City That Rhymes With Fun" to take the head coaching gig with the Melonheads. However, I was proved wrong when Jamall Johnson almost made Durant the second quarterback he's squashed onto the carpet at Ivor Wynne. The D held the visiting side to just 255 yards of offence; picking off Durant three times, and exposing him to the point where he was yanked in favour of Ryan Dinwiddie to start the fourth quarter. Upon seeing the switch I began to feel like I had taken a short trip in the wayback machine to Winnipeg in the year 2007 when Dinwiddie was Glenn's backup for the Bombers; taking the starting job in the biggest game of the year after Glenn was injured at the hands of the gangland tackling by our despised rivals up the QEW in the Eastern Final that season.
However, with one of the main cogs in the Riders' offence, Andy Fantuz, temporarily moving on to the bright lights of the NFL, and the retirement of stallwart fullback, Chris Szarka, in the off-season, the Green and White's offence are showing signs of emptiness that needs rectifying as quickly as possible. Their defence is no better with a secondary that appears to be non-existant. Throw in the fact that normally money players, wideout Rob Bagg and kicker Luca Congi are on the 9-game IR, and it will be a tough challenge in Riderville to not only make it to BC Place this November for a hopeful third straight kick at the can, but to even consider making it to the post-season. Their only solace currently is the fact the Lions are also 0-3 to start 2011. However, in Week 4, the Riders face their recent Grey Cup nemesis, the Alouettes, for the second time in three weeks. Somehow, I'm hearing the faint beeping of a manure truck backing up on Piffles Taylor Way.
What's On Deck:
This week, the TiCats will make the long transcontinental flight to Vancouver to take on those aforementioned 0-3 Lions in the opening contest of Week 4. The game starts at 10 pm ET on TSN. It's going to be a late one Tigertown, so I hope you all remember to turn off your alarm clocks so you can sleep in Saturday morning after the game. As I've been doing the past couple of weeks, I will be "commen-tweeting" the action, but this time, I will be doing it from a new Twitter account. So to all interested parties that want to follow along during the game, add @DiefOnCats to your Twitter following list. Chances are if Rod Black and Duane Forde are covering the game, I'll be tweeting my disdain for the pairing; although, it'd be more the former than the latter.
Have a great week Tigertown, and I hope to "hear" from you late Friday night. Oskee wee wee!
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