Blue start season with a bang

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This article was published 02/07/2011 (5246 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HAMILTON — There are monkeys. And then there is the drooling, snarling beast that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers got off their back Friday night with a gutsy 24-16 come-from-behind victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to open the 2011 CFL season.

“Talk about getting a monkey off our back,” said Bombers defensive tackle Doug Brown. “That was a silverback gorilla at the zoo that’s been eating for 11 years. That’s how heavily it was weighing us down.

“It’s a tremendous way to start the season.”

Consider the backdrop of the Bombers victory Friday night. For starters, this was a club that had not won on the road in 10 consecutive games, a drought that dated back to October 2009.

And then on top of that was another — even more odds-defying — run. The Bombers played nine games in 2010 in which the margin of victory was four points or less — and lost every single one of them.

And so with the Bombers trailing the Ticats 16-13 early the fourth quarter at Ivor Wynne Stadium, the script looked depressingly familiar.

And then Ticats pivot Kevin Glenn — that bane of the Bombers existence ever since they dumped him as their quarterback prior to the 2009 season — overthrew Dave Stala on the sideline and the ball landed in the hands of Bombers defensive back Alex Suber.

Suber promptly returned Glenn’s offering 66 yards the other way for a touchdown to give the Bombers their first lead of the game at 1:33 of the fourth quarter. “Don’t get caught — that’s all I was thinking,” Suber said he was thinking during the jaunt.

Some stifling Bombers defence followed in the fourth quarter — safety Ian Logan added a pair of interceptions while linebacker Joe Loebendahn stuffed Ticats running back Avon Cobourne on a third-and-one run.

Add a fourth-quarter field goal by Bombers place kicker Justin Palardy and a late single by punter Mike Renaud and finally, mercifully, a pair of streaks that absolutely had to end if the Bombers are going to have any success this season had done exactly that.

And in the first game of a brand new season, no less. “These kids are high character kids who will compete,” Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice said after the game.

The second-half heroics by the Bombers made it easier to forgive what was a comedy of errors in the first half for the visitors that saw them fall behind 10-0 barely 10 minutes into the game.

It was hard to pick what hurt the Bombers more in the first half. There were four dropped passes — two by rookie Kito Poblah, before he left the game with a knee injury midway through the second quarter. There were undisciplined penalties — the Bombers were flagged seven times for 91 yards in the first half.

And then there were the Bombers special teams — the source of much anguish last season — who picked up right where they left off with a series of miscues in the first half that included a blocked punt in the first quarter that gave Hamilton the ball on Winnipeg’s 19-yard line and led to Hamilton’s only touchdown.

There was a sobering note, however: the Bombers victory also came with some worrying injuries to three high-profile players. Besides Poblah, slotback Terrence Edwards left the game with sore ribs, defensive back Jovan Johnson has a sore hip and special teams player Brady Browne has a bicep injury.

On another note, the Bombers defence may have created a little dissension in the Ticats locker-room. Glenn was pulled in the fourth quarter and made clear after the game he wasn’t happy about it.

“Getting pulled, first game of the season, it just felt like a smack in the face,” Glenn told reporters. And then, referencing Hamilton head coach Marcel Bellefeuille: “He’s the coach, he makes the decisions, but I also

have feelings. I have an opinion.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca