Steve Milton: Ticats beat Alouettes in sloppy pre-season game
It was a pre-season game which, almost by definition, meant it was going to be sloppy and full of mistakes but the weather was great and, if you're going to keep score, you might as well have the home team win improbably on a field goal on the last play.
So, Hamilton Tiger-Cats 25, Montreal Alouettes 23, courtesy of Irish-born kicker Tadhg Leader's 35-yard field goal with nothing but zeros left on the clock. A lot is going to happen before this season ends - heck, a lot has already happened (read: short strike followed by averted strike) before it even started - so nobody is going to remember for very long that with 15 seconds left to play the Als had scored on the two-point convert of Davis Alexander' quarterback sneak. Or that rookie Ticat quarterback Jamie Newman then launched a deep pass to Donnell Williams that the Als stupidly interfered with at their own 28 yard line to send Leader onto the field for the win.
Earlier Leader, who's in a battle with Canadian Michael Domagala, American Seth Small, and Australians Joel Whitford and Blake Hayes for the punting and kicking job(s), has played only a handful of football games in the U.S. Spring League and in the Polish professional league after a career as a rugby player.
Good story? So far, anyway. His only touch Saturday night, prior to the winner, was a weak 33-yard punt. So redemption was a relief," he said.
I've never been in that situation before. That was only my 10th game of football. Ever. So it was pretty surreal to see the ball flying straight and all of a sudden all the lads were engulfing me. It was cool," Leader said. Because we have so many good kickers I only got two opportunities tonight. I wanted to blot out that punt and sometimes you get overeager and it happens. At that point I was hoping to get another opportunity to influence the game and you couldn't get a better chance than to kick a game-winner."
Ticats quarterback Dane Evans summed up the situation this way: We've been trying to tell rookies and the new guys that in the last three minutes, in the CFL it's never over until it's over. And they're all, yeah, right, right, right.' And they finally got to see it tonight.
If we weren't a tight team we probably wouldn't have stormed the field for a pre-season walk-off victory."
This was a film game, meaning the real judgments were to take place Saturday night and Sunday as the staff studied tape in minute detail to prepare to cut several players by midnight Sunday.
But here, without the aid of film, are some personal takeaways:
- Dane Evans looked sharp, completing four of five passes in his short stint, which will be extended Friday night in Guelph against the Argos. He praised presumed No. 2 Matt Shiltz, who went 3-for-4 and commanded the offence" and showed what Evans called Ticat hustle." Jalen Morton played the most time under centre and, like Shiltz, reminded everyone he could run with 52 yards on four carries, while Newman got in only with our minutes left.
- The punting game was, overall, still very weak, although Whitford did hit a solid 42-yarder. But, Domagala had a terrific game with two long kickoffs, a 49-yard field goal and a successful convert and Small was 2-for-2 in field goals, including a 48-yarder. I thought we kicked the ball well I just think we didn't punt the ball very well," head coach Orlondo Steinauer said. It's going to be a battle, there's no leaning toward anything right now and we have a week of practice and another game."
- Because they can start four Canadian offensive linemen, the Ticats are looking toward running back as an American position, with Don Jackson as the No. 1. But returnee Wes Hills, who got into only one game last year, is impressive and saw a lot of action with nine carries for 38 yards behind, mostly, the reserve linemen. Steinauer warned us not to read too much into that but we will anyway: the Ticats want to see the big fast back enough times to confirm that he is as good as they think he is and find a way to get him onto the roster as backup to Jackson and as a kickoff returner. Part of his workload was to enable the linemen vying for backup jobs on this team to have a chance to fire" off the line of scrimmage instead of just bracing for pass blocking. But every decision involving an American who doesn't start can also affect whether the team is able to carry an American kicker, if that's the way that special-teams decision heads.
- When the A' offensive unit was removed after the first quarter, tall first-year receivers Anthony Johnson and Emmanuel Butler went with them, after each making two catches. It's still early but that indicates the coaches know what they have there, and like what they see so far.
- Elsewhere: Canadian defensive end Mason Bennett got a lot of snaps. The sophomore will play an important role in the ratio on defence where the Ticats will likely use two Canadians, one of them safety Tunde Adeleke and the other either Ted Laurent or Bennett, with defensive back Stavros Katsantonis sometimes figuring in. American running back Dejoun Lee had plenty of field time on punt and kickoff returns and got four carries in the backfield.
Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com