My Riders won their first game of the season but not w/o some controversy. Dwight Anderson took 2 - count them two - objectionable conduct penalties late in the 3rd Q - not for fighting or a nasty hit but because he was trash talking an Edmonton coach on the sideline. In spite of his line-mates trying their best to calm him down, he continued to argue and was visibly disruptive on the sidelines. Had I been there, I would have cold-cocked the SOB. He tries anything like that again, and he better be history. The last thing the team needs is some idiot with an agenda of their own distracting them from what really counts - winning football games. There, now I feel better.
Now back to the game. Sask scored on their opening drive and their next possession to lead 14 to zip in the 1rst Q. Admittedly, it was not w/o some help from the Eskimos D who had several cases of nervous nellies jumping early and calling down procedure penalties on themselves. Kory Sheets was the recipient of the first Durant pass for a TD and Taj Smith got the second.
The Saskatchewan defence went to work each and every time Edmonton got the ball. The Chickman, Keith Shologan and Ben Heenan along with their teammates harried, harrassed and sacked Eskimo QB Mike Reilly throughout the game. He was intercepted twice and the Eskimos turned the ball over twice - Sask got 14 pts on the TOs. One of the interceptions came on the last play of the 2nd Q as Reilly, backed up near his goal line scrambled to get away from the Sask defenders and threw an errant pass which was intercepted by Sask's Renauld Williams who promptly ran it into the end zone to put the Riders ahead 22 to 1.
Ryan Getzlaf lunged over the goal line for another Sask TD around the 11:04 mark in the 3rd and the Riders led 20 to 1. Sam Hurl forced an Edmonton TO at the midway mark of the 3rd. Kory Sheets took the ball to the 5 yard line and Scott McHenry put another 6 on the board for the Riders. Sask had just scored a total of 21 points in 5 minutes. Score: 36 to 1.
Late in the 3rd the Eskimos were able to put three on the board courtesy of a Grant Shaw FG - their only other point came off a long boot to the end zone. After Sask was forced to concede a two pointer, the Eskimos only trailed by 30 pts.
Diamond Ferri intercepted another Reilly pass then suffered a tremendous hit by the Esks O'Donnell which saw Ferri woozily leaving the field for the dressing rooms - not w/o a goofy grin on his face. The TO resulted in a 24-yard FG by Chris Milo and Sask led 39 to 6 early in the 4th Q.
Finally at 6:36 in the 4th, Freddie Stamps got 6 on the board for the Esks though the following attempt at a two-point convert went for naught when Weldon Brown intercepted the pass in the end zone and ran it out. He was called for objectionable conduct when seen to bounce the ball off the back of an Edmonton defender.
Grant Shaw was able to up the Edmonton scoring with two FGs very late in the 4th.
Final score: 39 to 18
Oh..............and Rob Baggs actually caught and held onto the ball.......will wonders never cease.
