It’s a bit of a raw deal that Greg Marshall received yesterday as the Hamilton Tiger Cats punched his time card for the final time. Marshall who was named coach of the year in his debut season, was replaced by long time CFL icon Ron Lancaster, who will take over for the rest of the season. It's an old saying that you can't fire the team, so fire the coach but somehow in this instance it just doesn't seem too fair!
Marshall the former CIS College coach from McMaster who joined the Cats three years ago, had great success early on in his CFL career and his jump from Canadian college ball to the pros was considered the possible wave of the future. But Monday morning, that wave crashed ashore leaving Marshall high and dry!
Marshall was Coach of the year material in his first season and a suddenly rejuvenated squad that seemed to pull off wins when none were there to be had. But this year has been a completely different story as Hamilton seemed to strive for ways to give away a game. Marshall’s Tiger Cats were woeful at times this year so far, but other times just plain unlucky as potential wins slipped through their grasp at inopportune times.
Bolstered by some key additions in the off season, many felt that Marshall’s team was set to make a run at the Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts for first place in the East, instead with a 0-4 start they have watched the Winnipeg Blue Bombers become the talk of the CFL East. While everyone is singing the praises of Doug Berry’s Bombers, an equal amount were proclaiming what’s wrong with Marshall’s Ti Cats!
With last weeks loss to the Alouettes, it seemed only a matter of time before Marshall was let go, prior to that match, Ti Cat owner Bob Young was asked about the tightrope that his head coach suddenly found himself on. Young didn’t offer up much of a safety net for the dangling Marshall before the Alouette game and took it away completely by Monday morning.
It will be interesting to see if Lancaster can calm things down enough in Hamilton to give Jason Maas some time to get the Tiger Cat offence into gear. So far his arrival from Edmonton, hailed in the off season as the missing link has just plain been missing. The early handicapping had Marshall’s potential replacement to be Joe Paopao, but for whatever reason the Ti Cat offense has had nothing but struggles thus far on offense, perhaps the Tiger Cat management felt a bridge was needed for this season, hence the Lancaster appointment.
To say that they have struggled would be charitable. But while the poor offensive display thus far is a cause for concern, it is team discipline that is the most troublesome aspect for the Tiger Cats this year. Far too many drives have ended or balls turned over due to poor decisions on the field by players in yellow and black. Penalties in short have been a killer for this team this year so far. They’ve killed drives, killed scoring chances and on Monday killed off their coach.
Unless Lancaster can solve that problem, it will be more of the same for Hamilton fans. A far different outcome for the season than that which most suggested at the break of training camp!
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