Tonight was good. It’s a starting point.

It’s still a long season and so far we’re 3-1. We were really hoping to be 4-0 at this point, but this is a starting point. I think we did some great things out there but there are still some things we need to capitalize on. I haven’t watched the film yet but there were some plays to be made out there and we definitely need to capitalize on that in the future.

I say this in every interview I do — it’s not up to the offence. That’s how I was raised, that it’s up to the defence. You know what they say — defence wins championships. I know people don’t like that sometimes, but that’s the way I look at it. We put that responsibility of stopping them from scoring on our backs. The guys played great tonight.

Saskatchewan had been doing exceptional up until tonight. I think these guys — the front end and the secondary — did a great job tonight.

A lot of people talked about Toronto’s rushing game against last week and a lot of us really took that to heart. In the front seven, we don’t want to be giving up 140 yards rushing. That’s too much to one person.

We knew the Riders have been very good at pulling out games in the late going in the past few years. We prepared for that. That’s one thing Coach Huff stressed from Day 1. He said: “Guys, this is not going to be won in the first three quarters. It’s going to be a four-quarter game.”

This week of preparation was great. Guys did a great job in the weight room this week and they put in extra conditioning just getting their bodies right because we knew this was a tough team. They hang around until the very last second and you saw it tonight — they were still fighting at the end — and I think we responded well to that.

We didn’t beat these guys last year. We feel this is the team we might have to beat in the future. We’re not knocking any other team but right now, this is the team we’ll have to defeat to go where we want to go. It’s a great confidence-builder but like I said, it’s a long season, man and we have to keep it going.

Juwan Simpson, #12
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