The Canadian Press
HAMILTON — The Hamilton Tiger-Cats defence was instrumental in shutting down the BC Lions on Saturday in the Black and Gold’s 40-10 win at home in front of the crowd at Tim Hortons Field.
“The energy from the start was really positive and I’m proud of the guys,” Ticats head coach June Jones said following his team’s seventh win of the season, evening their record to .500. “It’s hard to come back from the defeat like the one we had, but those guys rallied up and played their hearts out.”
Saturday’s game in Hamilton came a week after the two teams squared off in Vancouver in what could be a game of the year candidate. Will nine seconds remaining in the fourth quarter and the Ticats leading by eight, the Lions travelled from their own 51-yard line to not only score a touchdown but also score the two-point conversion that was necessary to force overtime. In the overtime period, the Lions put the cap on the heartbreaking loss for the Ticats by kicking the game-winning field goal.
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“They’ve been sitting on that for a week,” Jones said. “We knew that we can play better than that, and we did.”
And did they ever, especially the Hamilton defence.
When the final seconds ticked away and the Ticats saw themselves on the winning end of a lopsided result, the Ticats defence had registered six quarterback sacks, three interceptions and two touchdowns, both of which were made by defensive players under-cutting routes.
“I think they just have more confidence in what they’re doing,” Jones said on both Don Unamba and Mike Daly, the two Ticats who registered touchdowns off of interceptions.
Earlier in the season, it wasn’t particularly uncommon to see the Ticats defence playing a more conservative style of defence; playing the receiver rather than the ball while it was still in the air. As a result, the Ticats gave up a number of big plays that had a tendency to quickly deteriorate any momentum they may have build up.
“They trust the defence, they trust the calls,” Jones continued. “Mike has a really good feel for when we’re doubling people. Jerry does a very good job with those guys. They all play hard as you can tell. We’re hustling to the ball and we’re rallying up.”
Throughout the course of June Jones’ post-game press conference, the Hamilton coach spent the majority of the time gloating about the various performances of players throughout the lineup, and for the most part, a lot of those came on the defensive side of the ball.
In the third quarter, defensive lineman Ted Laurent recorded sacks on back-to-back offensive drives by the Lions.
“Teddy played well. I was disappointed with a couple of penalties in the first half that he had, which allowed them to score. But all in all, Teddy played his heart out.”
Those two penalties, an unnecessary roughness and offsides call, both came against Laurent, which aided in the Lions progressing downfield, ultimately placing them in position to coordinate some damage control with the Ticats sitting with a 20-0 lead at this point in the game.
Fortunately for the Tabbies, the Lions had to settle for a mere three points off of a Ty Long field goal, but Jones, all praise aside, stressed mistakes resulting in penalties simply can’t happen at this point in the season.
“They wouldn’t have had three points if we didn’t have two penalties on that drive. You can’t do that. You’ve got to be disciplined.”
The Tiger-Cats will be given an extra week to relish the victory as they’ll spend Week 17 of the CFL schedule on their third and final bye week, but with Jones finding out last season after taking over as the head coach in Hamilton at the halfway point of the season, he quickly realized just how important the final stretch of the regular season truly is when it comes time to playoffs.
“Basically, I told them to get their bodies right,” Jones said. “I said the season really begins now. I learned that… I said for you knew guys who aren’t here, you learn really fast that these four or five last games are what this season is about.”
