Bomber D getting back to basics

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This article was published 18/08/2014 (4351 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Back to work on the field after consecutive losses, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are zeroing in on back to basics.

The 5-3 Bombers meet the 1-6 Montreal Alouettes Friday at Investors Group Field, when the home team will be wearing its newly designed CFL Signature Uniforms. More on that below.

Winnipeg dropped its most recent start in Toronto last Tuesday, a game played just four days after a home loss against Saskatchewan.

“I think with a four-day turnaround, I want to blame a lot of it on that and there was some fatigue in there but our main problem was starting to fall away from the basics on our defence,” Bombers defender Zach Anderson said today. “We were falling away from our technique

“We really came in here on these off-days and realized that our technique was off from what we originally planned to do and we were basically playing as individuals instead of a team out there when we got tired.

“This week, the thing is to get back to basics and that’s what we’re been doing.”

Anderson was emphatic that recent defeats have not been a product of opponents figuring out the Bombers.

“That’s the thing coach will preach, that they may think they know what they’re doing but they have no idea what we’re doing,” Anderson said. “If our defence fails, it’s because we failed to execute it, not because they figured us out.”

Today, the Bombers announced the addition of two players to their practice roster.

One is Anderson’s brother, Chad, an offensive lineman and the other is receiver Kemonte Bateman. Both are international players.

Bateman, at six-foot-one and 185 pounds, is from New Mexico State. The 24-year-old Los Angeles native finished last season with the Edmonton Eskimos and was released in the off-season.

He recorded 78 catches for 1,121 yards in his final two seasons at New Mexico State. The chart included nine touchdowns.

Anderson, 22, is fresh out of Northern Michigan. The Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., native became a starter in 2011 and finished with 32 straight starts to finish his college career.

The new Bomber uniforms, designed by reebok, will be unveiled in a special event at the stadium on Tuesday afternoon. Most of the players wore the matching new helmets — an urban-camo sort of look — at today’s practice at IGF.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca