Blue bring knife to gunfight

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/08/2015 (3927 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Feed the following into your predictability app:

• One team showed up Saturday at Investors Group Field with skills and actions, ready for the street fight a West Division matchup should be.

• The other side came prepared for a good debate and no more.

The result — a 36-8 runaway by the Calgary Stampeders over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers — you could see coming all the way from Canada’s only winless CFL province in 2015.

The division-leading Stamps used superior players, plays and play calling to capture a fourth straight victory and move to 7-2.

The Bombers now have a bona fide losing streak on their hands at three games, sinking to 3-6 with a display that sent many of the 27,148 in attendance home on a decidedly down note.

The road to a post-season berth isn’t closed, but there’s now more thin ice on the route than there was two or three weeks ago.

Forward is hard

The Bombers put up a season-low 136 yards of net offence, a miserable showing that featured small plays almost the entire night. Not surprisingly, the team managed all of two first downs in the second half when the Stamps ran away and hid after leading only 8-3 at the half.

“It’s tough to say right now without seeing the film, but it’s not very good, 130 yards,” said slotback Nick Moore. “You’ve got to be better than that. You can’t win a game with that. There’s probably a million things we could have been better at but we weren’t. And that’s all that matters. We’ve got to find some way to get better.”

Robert rattled

Bombers quarterback Robert Marve, in his second start, had a forgettable night, sacked five times and largely held in check by a responsible Calgary defence. He was 12 for 20 for just 94 yards.

He threw two shattering interceptions, one run back by Calgary’s Jamar Wall for a major on the second half’s second play, and was eventually pulled in favour of Brian Brohm for the game’s futile final three series.

“No explosion plays,” Marve said, trying to explain a night full of short throws.

“Everything was quick dunks and quick pops. We’ve got to look back and evaluate that. We didn’t have any big explosion plays. We had a couple against Toronto that helped out but we didn’t have any today.”

O’Shucks, O’Shoot

Bombers coach Mike O’Shea wasn’t in the mood for glossing things over after this home loss.

“I can’t say it,” O’Shea said, asked for his feeling after that defeat. “Not good. The production we had, it wasn’t good enough to win the game. You go into halftime at 8-3 and you’ve got a real shot. And we let it slip through our fingers.

“When you go in 8-3 and give up 28 points in the second half, I’m disappointed in mostly everything, including myself. Did I give them enough to allow us to go out there and be great in the second half? Obviously not.”

That adversity bug

Common sense says the Bombers defence held the fort as long as it could, well into the second half, but had a losing hand with the offence’s abject failure, not even once sniffing the Calgary end zone with a play, never mind a touchdown.

But nobody was flying that flag Saturday night.

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“We’re not going to have a problem with our guys sticking together,” O’Shea said, not letting the defence off the hook.

“But our defence understands the situation we’re in and they can’t allow that many points in the second half.”

“We’ve definitely got to try to respond positively when bad things happen,” said middle linebacker Sam Hurl, calling the first half “history” in light of a second-half sag.

“We’ve got to be able to step up and support our teammates because ultimately that’s what it’s all about. You can’t expect everybody out there to have a perfect game, but when someone messes up, we have to be able to have their back.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca