Frankly Speaking: The best run
defence is a good offence
By Greg Urbanoski
Few sights were more painful this year than watching the Balloon
Boy throw up on national television, or an unnecessary roughness
penalty called on John Chick during overtime of the Calgary –
Saskatchewan game, but fans of the University of Regina Rams
would likely count watching the Rams trying to handle the
University of Calgary Dinos’ running attack as among them.
The Dinos won the first meeting between the two 41-15 at Mosaic
Stadium, which was the punctuation mark to a week that began
with a narrow 10-9 loss to the University of Saskatchewan
Huskies, followed by the death of Rams rookie defensive lineman
Spenser Borlase.
The rematch in Calgary sees the Dinos cruising comfortably on
top of Canada West with a 5-1 record, while the Rams are coming
off a 33-22 loss in Edmonton to the University of Alberta Golden
Bears and a 3-3 record.
“We’re disappointed about that game against the University of
Alberta but it was a case of coulda, shoulda, woulda,” said Rams
Head Coach Frank McCrystal.
“We got behind and lost our focus, but we have the next two
weeks. We’re going into Calgary and while people may be thinking
about the score of the last game, we have to just play each down
one at a time.”
McCrystal said the score was not completely indicative of the
play by the Rams against the Dinos. The Rams were still
competitive in the game until the fourth quarter when the Dinos
ran away with it thanks to the work of running back Matt Henry.
“I think we are a better team now than we were last year,” said
McCrystal. “To get a rope around their running game to keep them
from running away from us the answer is pretty simple – we need
to score points.
“One hand washes the other, which is an especially important
during this flu season. So if we score when we have the ball, we
force them to do other things besides being able to run down
after down. If we put the ball in the end zone, we force them to
be honest on their offence and it affects their game plan.”
Offensive execution is something the Rams will be working on
this week, especially after their last game against the
University of Alberta. The Rams sabotaged their own efforts by
taking offside and procedure penalties after they had made major
gains.
“You can’t do those kinds of things and expect to do well,” said
McCrystal. “We can’t complain about the officiating because we
were the ones that killed us.
“We had a lack of discipline and focus and we can’t expect to do
well against the University of Calgary if we don’t play with
discipline and focus this week.”
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