Almost 2 years since Blue Bombers followed up victory with another win

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This article was published 11/07/2016 (3369 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It has been almost two years since the Winnipeg Blue Bombers followed up a victory with another win.

While that’s important for a positive state of mind in the locker room and for building excitement in the stands, it’s absolutely vital for any team in the CFL with Grey Cup aspirations to get on a roll and build momentum.

Yet, it didn’t seem all that important to head coach Mike O’Shea after practice Monday, when he said he didn’t know when his team last strung two wins together.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said.

Asked again, just to be sure, O’Shea simply said: “No.”

Perhaps he was caught off guard.

The Bombers recorded their first win of the 2016 season Thursday — 28-24 over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats — and most of the talk since then has been about turning things around after losing their first two games.

So it didn’t seem to faze O’Shea the answer is 23 months and 10 days ago, when the Bombers beat B.C. and Hamilton in Weeks 5 and 6 of the 2014 season to improve to 5-1 after opening with three consecutive wins.

“No, it wouldn’t surprise me,” O’Shea said. “I don’t see the relevance in it, though.”

Under O’Shea, the Bombers went the entire 2015 campaign without winning consecutive games, finishing the season with a mark of 5-13. After going 5-1 to open 2014 — O’Shea’s first season as head coach — Winnipeg lost 10 of its next 12 games, including eight consecutive losses. It wasn’t much better before that, as the Bombers were unable to win back-to-back games in the 2013 or 2012 seasons, either, posting a combined record of 9-27.

“Probably can’t explain it because I don’t look at it that way,” said O’Shea.

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“I always look at each game as an independent event; each opponent is different, and win or lose, you move on very quickly to the next opponent. So I don’t think I’ve ever posed it to the team that way, really.

“If you want to finish well in the standings, if you want to make the playoffs. Yeah, good teams probably want to win, at some point in the season, want to win games in a row.”

Good teams such as the defending Grey Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos (1-1), who will take on the Blue Bombers in Winnipeg on Thursday night.

Notes: Linebacker Khalil Bass and Quincy McDuffie returned to practice Monday after missing Sunday… Defensive lineman Jake Thomas missed his second day of practice, but O’Shea said he will play against Edmonton… C.J. Roberts worked with the first-team defence at boundary corner, moving Kevin Fogg over to halfback.

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.catwitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.