Same foe, different challenge

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2009 (5816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Beating the Montreal Alouettes in your own park and with their best player watching in a parka and tuque on the sidelines is one thing. Getting it done on their field with Anthony Calvillo at the helm, well, that’s another piece of gristle to chew on.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers (7-9), who hung a 41-27 loss on the Alouettes (13-3) last weekend at Canad Inns Stadium, will travel to Montreal this weekend and likely face a team eager to re-establish its dominance.

Calvillo took last weekend off to nurse a strained calf muscle and while the Als won’t return to practice until today, it’s hard to imagine him not taking part for at least a quarter this Sunday.

“I want him to play. So bad. I want to play against the best. If he’s the best quarterback they have on the roster, that’s who I want to play against,” said veteran defensive back Lenny Walls. “I don’t want anybody taking it easy on us because we don’t take it easy on anybody. Right now it’s about being strong, being silent and playing your best football going into the playoffs. We know we have to stay humble but stay hungry at the same time. It’ll be fun to go in there and play them. We all know what to expect from one another.”

Sore

Bombers quarterback Michael Bishop has been nursing a hamstring for close to a month and says it’s sore but improving and won’t prevent him from playing.

“A lot of people have opinions on whether it would have been different last week if Anthony had been playing. Maybe it would have been. But we stepped up when we had to. That’s what did happen,” said Bishop, who smiled and said his hamstring was “87 per cent.”

“We won all three phases of the game. We control what we control. We’ll play our game.”

Bombers coach Mike Kelly said a number of his players — Fred Reid, Ryan Donnelly, Terrence Edwards and Brock Ralph — rested on Tuesday but would be back in the lineup for the weekend. Receiver Adarius Bowman has what Kelly called a “slight MCL strain,” and is still uncertain for Sunday’s game.

The Alouettes have bounced back after their previous two losses this season. Following a road loss to the Edmonton Eskimos they beat the Toronto Argonauts 25-0 in their next game out and after a road defeat to the B.C. Lions took revenge on the Leos the very next week with a 28-24 win in Montreal.

The Bombers are the only East Division team to beat the Alouettes this season and Montreal remains undefeated at Molson Stadium.

Kelly expects the Alouettes to up their game for Sunday.

“I’d want my players to respond. One year when Bob O’Billovich took over the Argos, we (the Bombers) rolled into Toronto with only two or three losses and they had only one win and they put it to us pretty good. We went on after that to win four or five in a row,” said Kelly. “Montreal is a good football team and I would expect their mindset is to respond to what happened last weekend.”

Linebacker Ike Charlton says the Alouettes will be looking to knock any hope out of the Bombers’ minds.

“They’re going to have their guns loaded this week. They don’t like to lose and especially the way they did lose. I’m almost positive Calvillo will play. How long? I don’t know that,” guessed Charlton. “But he’ll want to get his timing back and they don’t like what happened to them here. Some people say we won because Calvillo didn’t play, but I think as a whole, it was our day. We’ll be ready this week. So will they.”

Sunday’s meeting between the Bombers and Alouettes will be the last in the season series that Montreal leads 2-1 heading into the game.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca