Mitchell Blair
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are huge favourites to beat the Montreal Alouettes when the two teams meet at Mosaic Stadium Saturday afternoon. While many expect the green and white to walk off the field a winner for the fourth straight time, the football team realizes in the CFL you can take nothing for granted and are not reading the press clippings going in.
“We have talked about not reading the blogs and reading the guarantees that get us unfocussed,” Chamblin said. “There is no thing as a guaranteed victory in this league. You have to work for all four quarters in order to be successful.”
With the Alouettes coming in struggling at 1-5, it would not be hard for a sense of overconfidence to creep in, but quarterback Darian Durant says that would be a huge mistake.
“You don’t win games on paper,” Durant exclaimed. “If you overlook a team like this, you will be in for a rude awakening because even though their record isn’t what they want it to be, there are good players on that team.
Durant also bristles at the notion this could perhaps be a “trap” game for them as they return home after two big road wins in five days over Ottawa and Winnipeg.
“In our locker room, there’s no such thing as a trap game.” Durant said. “Every game is important. The records don’t matter. They are capable of beating anyone in the league. They beat B.C and B.C beat us, so we have to be ready to play and not overlook anything.”
Durant goes on to say that teams can be struggling, but all they need is one positive to change a season around and that they can’t allow Montreal to have that positive happen at Mosaic because it could turn into a huge negative for his team.
“Put yourself as an athlete in their shoes.” Durant said. “They don’t like what’s going on over there and we know what it would be like trying to shut up all the naysayers. If they were to come here and get a win, it could jumpstart them to bigger and better things. We don’t want that. What we want to do is come out of the tunnel, be focused and make it difficult for them right from the first snap.”
Defensive back Rod Williams will certainly be trying to do that. Williams is part of a defense that has allowed just 40 points during this three game win streak. He says the m-o for his unit doesn’t change one bit.
“Getting a fast start is key,” Williams explained. “We have been fortunate enough to get some early turnovers to give us some momentum and we want to keep doing that this time around. Getting those turnovers or those big plays gets the crowd going and its get you going. We know what we need to do and we intend to go out and do it.”
Game time Saturday is 5 o’clock with TV coverage on TSN. 620 CKRM will start its pre-game coverage with “Roughrider Gameday” at 230. As is always the case, the show will be streamed live on Riderville.com with Rod Pedersen and Carm Carteri once again getting you ready at 4 o’clock with “Rider Nation Pregame” followed by the call as they bring you every touchdown and every tackle.
GAME NOTES
- The Riders go into the week tied with Calgary in turnover differential with a plus 9. They have forced 20 takeaways while giving the ball away 11 times during the first six games of the season.
- Rookie defensive back Mark Legree leads the CFL in interceptions with 3.
- The Riders lead the CFL in rushing yards per game with an average of 135.7
- This game will be the 100th in the career of Riders receiver and home-grown product Chris Getzlaf
