The Tiger Cats looked pretty good on the balance sheet in the first thirty minutes of Friday night’s CFL match up with the Alouettes. Despite three interceptions thrown by Danny McManus the Tiger Cats were holding their own as they headed for the dressing room at the end of the second half, clawing their way back into the game the Cats left the field trailing 17-13, and feeling pretty good about their performance after two quarters.
However, Don Matthews had the necessary adjustments made to his defence and the third quarter was a completely different experience for the Tiger Cats. The Als defence rose to the challenge and shut down the Tiger Cat attack completely giving no points up in the final thirty minutes of play. By the end of the night Danny Mac’s interception totals would ring in at six, as the Als secondary took advantage of tipped balls and a couple of winged ducks that McManus no doubt wishes he had back.
While the defence was putting the wraps on the Ti-Cat offence, the Als found success in the third and fourth as Anthony Calvillo passed his way to ninth place overall in all time passing in the CFL. Calvillo’s 379 yard performance Friday night, gave him total passing yards of 34,968 yards as he continues on in his 11th season of Canadian Football. With tonight’s game Calvillo passed Ralph “Dieter” Brock and now puts his sights on Kent Austin’s 36,030 yards and eight place.
Part of his success tonight was the sure handed skills of Jermaine Copeland, who pulled in two Calvillo passes for touchdowns in the first half, Calvillo ran one TD in himself in the fourth, as he created some serious confusion for the Hamilton linebackers, dashing for the goal line from the four yard line. On the night Calvillo’s arm accounted for 28 completions on 41 attempts. Kicker Matt Kellet finished up the rest of the Als scoring, with four field goals and a single.
With the 34-13 victory, the Alouettes continue on with their domination of competition this year remaining undefeated thus far in the CFL season. With a 6-0 record they are the cream of the crop so far and look quite impressive with one third of the season out of the way. Every facet of the Montreal game looks incredibly strong, offence, defence, special teams and coaching it’s a full package in Montreal this year.
For Greg Marshall there were some good signs and some bad signs in this game. His teams competitiveness in the first half, should give him some confidence about his team’s ability to counter the stronger teams game plan. But on the down side an inability tonight to break through the strong Alouette defence and the three game losing slide are worrisome things to ponder over game film. While the entire blame can’t be placed on the shoulders of Danny McManus there were a couple of passes thrown tonight that would have been better placed in the front row of Ivor Wynne rather than downfield. Those turnovers gave the Als confidence and stalled Ti Cat drives through the night.
The Tiger Cats could not punch a Touchdown in from the five in the first half and had to settle for a field goal, not being able to finish drives is starting to take its toll on the Ti Cat offence. More protection is need for the Hamilton QB as well, far too many times tonight he was being manhandled by Alouette linemen or being rushed out of the pocket to hurry a pass. The constant pressure from the Als affected his passing stats of 16 of 39 for 213 yards. The pressure resulted in broken plays and on field miscues, then again deflected and dropped passes are part of the game and come back to haunt QB’s, tonight McManus was the haunted.
Montreal has the short rest period on the schedule this week as they travel to Vancouver to play the Lions on Thursday night, with the Lions looking much better on Thursday against Winnipeg, the Als will put their unbeaten streak on the line against a hungry Lions team. The Ti-Cats head for the prairies and a game with the Riders in Regina. Greg Marshall needs to get them back to where they were three weeks ago coming off of their third win in a row. It’s always tough to turn around a slide, but the key is not to let the losing continue on too long. The Cats have performed pretty good so far this season, but they need a win quickly to help get their heads back into the chase in the east.
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