Ticats can’t keep story straight on what TJ told them

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This article was published 19/11/2011 (5251 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — The Hamilton Tiger-Cats were having a difficult time Saturday keeping their story straight about what former Winnipeg Blue Bombers receiver Terence Jeffers-Harris did — and did not — give them when he signed with Hamilton Friday morning.

Hamilton running back Avon Cobourne sent out a pair of Tweets from his personal Twitter account Saturday in which he alleged Jeffers-Harris had provided invaluable information to the Ticats — and seemed to suggest that might even include the Bombers playbook.

“TJ Harris gave us there hole play book.. They stupid for letting them go a day before the game.. #SLAPDICKERY,” Cobourne tweeted.

Perhaps realizing the gravity of what he’d just written — it would be a serious matter if one team was in possession of another’s playbook — Cobourne then softened things with this Tweet: “TJ didn’t give us the playbook but he did tell us buck was going to play…”

But still not done, Cobourne then added this: “2 weeks to prepare for us n we know everything they doing!!! HAHAHAHAH thanks Bombers.”

That latter reference would appear to refer to the status of Bombers QB Buck Pierce, although the fact Pierce was starting on Sunday was already public knowledge by early Thursday afternoon.

Interestingly, Cobourne did not retract, his Tweet that the Ticats now “know everything” the Bombers are planning on doing for Sunday.

And it also bears noting that just prior to the Jeffers-Harris Tweets, Cobourne also found time to re-Tweet the following comment from someone named @MrhugeEGO651: “Every chicc that went to holy cross was a whore! #Fact.” Cobourne added his own comment to the reTweet: “HAHAHAHAH”.

Still unaware of what his running back had just Tweeted about Jeffers-Harris, Ticats coach Marcel Bellefeuille faced the media for his pre-game news conference at the Blue and Gold Room Saturday afternoon and was asked specifically if Jeffers-Harris had provided Hamilton the Bombers playbook.

“No, he didn’t provide us with anything,” Bellefeuille replied. “But I know it makes for good stories.”

Did Jeffers-Harris provide your team with any useful information about the Bombers game plan for Sunday, Bellefeuille was asked in a follow-up question? “None whatsoever.”

Bellefeuille was then confronted with his running back’s Twitter comments and asked to explain why Cobourne might write something like that if it wasn’t true.

“I have no idea why he did that. Maybe it’s to create some noise. It’s news to me. I don’t follow Tweet and you just told me this for the first time. But it certainly didn’t happen. So I have no idea why he did that.”

Hamilton media relations coordinator Scott McNaughton interjected shortly after that and asked reporters to “move on.”

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And the running back scoffed when he was asked during a news conference following Bellefeuille’s availability if he was being serious when he suggested Jeffers-Harris had provided the Cats the Bombers playbook.

“Are you serious asking me that question?” Cobourne spat, apparently surprised at the audicity of someone asking him a direct question about something he had written on his own Twitter account barely an hour earlier. “If they don’t take their playbook back — I mean most teams when you get cut, you see them hand in the playbook, right? With that said, that’s the last question about that.”

Jeffers-Harris was cut by the Bombers Thursday morning for repeated violations of team rules but almost immediately hooked up with the Ticats and was already in Hamilton by Thursday night.

The Ticats announced Friday that they had signed Jeffers-Harris to a practice roster agreement and the 23-year-old import receiver out of Vanderbilt practiced in Hamilton with the Tabbies Friday morning.

Jeffers-Harris is ineligible to play for the Ticats in the East Division final at Canad Inns Stadium between the Ticats and Winnipeg Blue Bombers Sunday afternoon and didn’t make the trip with his new teammates back to Winnipeg.