Confidence Men!

Will this third year be the charm? The Ottawa Renegades showed that the growing pain years may be over, with a convincing defeat of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 37-25, Thursday night at CanadInn stadium. A bit over 22,000 fans watched as the Rens defense and special teams came up big all game long, as the Big Blue found getting untracked to be rather hard in their home debut.

Kerry Joseph showed that Joe Paopao’s faith in him is well justified as he excelled at leading Renegade drives down the field. Joseph threw for one TD a 74 yard toss to Yo Murphy and ran for the other as the Renegade offence provided some new thrills for their fans. Joseph’s stats were pretty impressive, 19 for 26 for 307 yards, with no interceptions. Josh Ranek used his straight ahead driving style for seven points. New addition Keith Woodcock made a number of amazing catches during the course of the game, showing that it sometimes takes only a bit of tweaking to get an offense firing on all its cylinders. Rookie kicker Sandro Sciortino had a good debut for the Rens as well, hitting field goals from varying lengths.

For Winnipeg it was not a great start to the season that has been described as the must win season. Coach Dave Ritchie who seems to be perpetually on a hot seat in the Peg, must be feeling warm on his butt right off the bat, the Bombers struggled all game to get consistent drives. Untimely penalties seemed to do in the Bombers as two touchdowns were called back due to flags. The more damaging of the two, was a controversial clipping penalty in the third quarter which seemed to take them off their focus, a touch down ruled no good when Bomber receiver Robert Gordon clipped an Ottawa defender in the end zone. The loss of the six points apparently affected the Bombers as they continued to be flat through the third quarter. Through the game the Bombers would roll down the field but once they were close to the goal line their drives fizzled. Jones went 28-46 for 430 yards, gaining two touchdowns but giving up two interceptions. The Bomber offence turned the ball over three times during the course of the game, too many errors put them in bad shape all game.

Ottawa gained possession of the ball on a short kickoff and gobbled not only field possession but time on the clock, as the Bombers defense reeled from the onslaught. The key for the Renegades was fourteen points in two minutes, the first seven on an offensive drive the second on an interception of a Khari Jones pass, taken back for a Rens TD. At that point, the confidence of the Renegade squad seemed to dominate the game. Every defensive play seemed to result in a stop or a turnover of the ball on downs. Joseph exhibited fine ball control and kept the Bombers defence off balance through the remainder of the game.

As the fourth quarter was winding down the Rens held an impressive 37-18 lead and for all intents and purposes were home clear and dry. The Bombers put together one final successful drive culminated by a nice pass and catch performance from Jones to Keith Stokes, something for the Bomber fans to think of for future games. But this one was all Ottawa. With the victory the Renegades have won their first game in Winnipeg since the nineties and their days as Rough Riders. With the victory the East Division race doesn’t look like such a cake walk for the Alouettes this year. Following a big win by the Argos on Tuesday and Thursday’s Renegade victory the word is out that the East will be a competitive division in 2004.

For Winnipeg it will be back to the chalkboard, the field drills and lots and lots of film work as they prepare for their next game Friday June 25th against the Ti-Cats in Hamilton. If the result and effort next week is the same as Thursday provided, summer will be a very hot season indeed for coach Ritchie.