Offensively, we started out a little bit slow tonight. We had a couple of turnovers early in the game, but we knew that we just needed to stick together. We had success driving the ball, but just weren’t finishing the drives. We came out after the half and didn’t get much going, but then late in the third and early in the fourth we really came alive and were able to put the ball in the end-zone. Romby (Bryant) made some great plays and the offensive line took over. Jon Cornish came in was able to get us some good field position, so overall it was a good effort.

They have a good team and a good defence and so do we. I think the slow start tonight was really just two defences playing well. It takes some time to figure out what’s going on. Everyone needs to get the nerves out of the way and you can begin to get a feel for how they are trying to scheme you. I felt the team that was able to bounce back from adversity would win the game late.

Defensively, what can you say about those guys. From start to finish they bring it and that basically allowed us to stay in the game early. They played hard throughout the game and it was another good day for the defence.

Credit the defence again. They tried to pick on Milt (Collins) with Andy Fantuz. He had some plays, but Milt had a pick and made a number of plays. They have a great receiving core and I thought our secondary played excellent considering what that group has done to teams this year.

As the night went on, what can I say, our running game tends to wear teams down as the game goes on and I think that’s just because we stick with it. Early in the game, we just had stalling drives, but I thought we were running successfully. As the game went on our offensive line started to wear on them and by the end of the game we had knocked down the door and were just more physical.

Having Jon (Cornish) spelling me on some drives has been working for us. Obviously they wanted to get Jon some more touches in the game and I think with any player, the more touches you get in the game, the more you can learn. It’s still a learning process for him and I think it’s working well so far. When the fourth quarter rolls around, I’m fresh and ready to go. On a day like today, I don’t even feel beat up and I feel like I could play again tomorrow which is a good thing. As a running back, anytime you don’t feel beat up, especially early in the season that’s a good thing and that’s what this allows us to do.

Coming in to the game, everyone was talking about the Rider fans, but I think our fans rival theirs. They might not be quite as crazy, but they come out and support us and it was definitely a good thing to see all of the green filing out at the end.

With that said, we have to go to their place twice later in the year, so this is a good stepping stone, but it’s only one game. This was a big win for us tonight, against a Western opponent, which was huge, but the season hasn’t ended yet. Now we’re getting ready for Winnipeg here at home.

Joffrey Reynolds, #21
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