Swaggerville to Swaggernil

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2011 (5381 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So remember how the management of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers took out that billboard ad in Regina prior to the Labour Day game, pointing out how the Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders had reversed records of 7-1 and 1-7 and suggesting our Saskatchewan friends were a bit “backwards?”

Remember that?

Well, two games later, the records are still reversed — only now they’re 7-3 and 3-7 and it’s suddenly the folks from Winnipeg who are not only backwards, but also headed in reverse.

Who’s laughing now?

The Bombers lost their second in a row to the Riders Sunday in the 2011 renewal of the Banjo Bowl at Canad Inns Stadium, falling 45-23 to a Riders club that looked dead and buried barely two weeks ago, but who are now looking like world-beaters after spanking what everyone thought was the best team in the CFL by a combined score of 72-30 the past two games.

Riders quarterback Darian Durant threw four touchdown passes, while the Bombers turned the ball over six times and got embarrassed on a fake field goal that set up a Saskatchewan touchdown at the end of the first half. What’s more, Winnipeg lost middle linebacker Joe Lobendahn to a knee injury in the second quarter and starting QB Buck Pierce emerged from the game so beaten up after taking some hellacious hits — including a sack in the first quarter by Riders safety Craig Butler so forceful it popped his helmet off — that Pierce said after the game he wasn’t sure what was wrong with him.

“I’m just pretty beaten up right now. I don’t know what anything is right now,” said Pierce.

Bombers defensive tackle Doug Brown, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was feeling.

“I feel like a girl just beat me up in the sandbox today. It’s pretty embarrassing, humiliating what happened. Not that Saskatchewan personifies that. I’m just saying in terms of a humiliating experience, man…

“Instead of coming out swinging today, we turtled up and put our head between our legs and it was a horror show.”

While Brown was pointed and unequivocal in his feelings after the game, defensive end Odell Willis was decidedly more cryptic. Willis, who lost his composure several times on the field as the fourth quarter wore on and twice confronted officials in such an aggressive manner he had to be restrained, initially declined comment to the local media assembled at his locker.

Willis, who was one of the most outspoken Bombers with the media during the club’s 7-1 start to the season, was pressed for why he was suddenly refusing to talk.

“Because you all got what you wanted, don’t you?” Willis replied.

Asked if he meant the media, Willis replied he did and then summoned Bombers director of media relations Darren Cameron to intervene. Cameron did so and Willis offered an apology for not speaking as he left the locker-room. “I ain’t in the right frame of mind. I’m sorry, y’all.”

It was an uncomfortable scene on a day that was full of them as a crowd of 30,518 mostly rabid, mostly Bombers fans had their appetites for redemption for the Labour Day loss quickly whetted by a 10-0 Winnipeg start and a sparkling 100-yard touchdown first-quarter drive, only to see it all hopelessly unravel from the second quarter onward.

“This was a big game for us to show our character and come back and play well,” Pierce said. “But we had way too many mistakes. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, you’re going to lose that ball game.

“This hurts, it hurts a lot. We’ve got to get better and that’s evident.”

Indeed, the challenges for Winnipeg only get more formidable. The Bombers play the Montreal Alouettes this Sunday in Montreal in what will now be a battle for first place in the East Division after Montreal moved to within two points of Winnipeg earlier on Sunday with a 43-13 shellacking of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

“We are going to have to play our best football to this point, coming off a game like this, in order to be competitive out there,” said Brown.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

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