Tough two weeks ahead on the road for the Blue Bombers

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This article was published 11/07/2015 (4047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers defensive tackle Bryant Turner couldn’t help but laugh Friday when it was pointed out his team has a tough schedule with games next week in Calgary — where the Bombers have won just once since 2002 — and in two weeks in Edmonton — where the Bombers last won in 2007.

“It’s been tough to play at home also, you know what I’m saying?” Turner said. “So it’s not a big difference — not a big difference at all. But we’re going in there starting to trust ourselves more. I know as a D-line, we’re starting to trust our technique more and we’re starting to play better. And it’s starting to show, definitely. I thought we did a decent job with the run tonight for the most part. And I feel like we can come in next week and build on this.”

Winnipeg’s 25-23 victory over the Montreal Alouettes at Investors Group Field was just the club’s fifth win at home since it moved into IGF to start the 2013 CFL season.

Turner said he felt like the Bombers began to establish an identity with a gritty effort on what was a sweltering night — except for one thing.

“I liked the aggressiveness of the team. I liked the spirit of the team tonight. We looked good. But penalties — we’ve still got to fix those penalties. We don’t want our identity to have anything to do with penalties for sure. Other than that, I thought we played really good, really hard,” said Turner.

“Is our identity 100 per cent strong? Not yet — there’s still a lot of little things to fix. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot on a lot of little things and that’s something we need to fix in-house for sure. Other than that, I thought we played really decent.”

The Bombers — who led the CFL in penalties coming into Week 3 — had 10 in the first half Friday before the players had the riot act read to them by the coaching staff. They took just one penalty in the second half.

Slotback Nick Moore led the Bombers in catches with seven, and now has a team-leading 19 for 244 yards in just three games.

Moore said he felt Friday made an important statement, coming just a week after the Bombers were humbled 52-26 at home by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

“That was a big win,” said Moore. “You never want two losses in a row. It hurts your momentum — you start getting in that loss column and it’s hard to get out of it. We fought hard today… And if we want to do what we want to do this year — win a Grey Cup — then we have to win at home and protect the house.”

Winnipeg head coach Mike O’Shea said he liked the way his defence and special teams — both scored touchdowns Friday — rose to the occasion as the offence put up a respectable amount of total yards (324), but never found the end zone.

“Every single game is going to be different and it’s going to take a different formula and a different recipe every game to get a win,” he said. “And in this game, we had the right recipe.”

Drew Willy said the offence needs to be better.

“We did some good things on offence but obviously we need to get in the end zone,” the quarterback said. “We had some good throwing plays, but we know we need to run the ball a little bit better. And we will.

“It’s just one of those things that they’re known for stopping the run and have a solid defence.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek