TORONTO — Jesse Lumsden and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats steamrolled the Toronto Argonauts on Thursday night.
Lumsden rushed for 189 yards and two touchdowns while Hamilton amassed
311 yards on the ground en route to a convincing 32-13 spoil Toronto’s
home opener. And the timing couldn’t have been worse as the Rogers
Centre gathering of 30,822 was the largest crowd for an Argos home
opener since 1992.
“We wanted to establish the run because they’re a very tough defence to
get after,” Lumsden said. “This is a big win for us, but it’s just one
win.
“We’ve got to hold on to this and keep going after it.”
Hamilton (1-1) earned just its second win in 19 regular-season meetings
with Toronto (1-1) and halted a nine-game losing streak against its
arch rival. And the Ticats did it with the most basic of approaches:
the zone read.
That’s when quarterback Casey Printers sticks the ball in Lumsden’s
gut, then based on the defensive rush either completes the handoff or
yanks the ball out and throws a pass downfield. It’s a play Printers
and Lumsden worked to near-perfection against Toronto’s three-man
defensive front.
“Casey and I had a good chemistry,” Lumsden said.
“It was good from the standpoint that it kept them on their heels and
not on their toes,” Printers said. “It makes my job a lot easier to
have one-play drives and keep watching his (Lumsden’s) back.”
Hamilton’s offensive performance (482 total yards, possession of the
ball for nearly 35 minutes) was in stark contrast to last week when the
unit struggled mightily in a 33-10 loss to Montreal. Printers certainly
did his part, running eight times for 33 yards and two TDs that helped
stake Hamilton to a 14-6 half-time lead. He also finished 16-of-23
passing for 171 yards.
But it was Lumsden who cemented the victory emphatically with a 57-yard
touchdown run at 11:33 of the fourth to round out the scoring.
“It makes all the difference in the world when you can run the
football,” said Hamilton coach Charlie Taaffe. “To me, it’s a mental
thing because if you can pound the football it takes a toll on the
defence.
“A big part of it (zone read) is deception and that’s something we
tried to emphasize this week. Casey does a nice job of putting the
football into the running back and it freezes the defence and when he
pulls it out it’s tough for them to adjust.”
Now, Printers says, it’s up to the youthful Ticats — a team that
posted a CFL-worst 3-15 record last year — to keep things rolling and
try to string some victories together.
“We have to come back down, continue to work hard and come back and do it again,” he said. “This has to be part of our psyche.”
Toronto has to now deal with a bruised psyche after being badly outplayed on both sides of the ball.
“Three hundred yards rushing? It could’ve been 600,” said Argos head
coach Rich Stubler. “We couldn’t tackle anybody out there tonight.
“There was no intensity on our part.”
For the second straight week, Toronto’s offence struggled to establish
any sort of consistency, mustering just 238 total yards against a
Ticats defence that gave up 472 yards against Montreal. Last week in
Winnipeg, the Argos managed 230 total yards in a 23-16 victory.
A big difference this time was Stubler stuck with starter Kerry Joseph
after last week having both Joseph and backup Michael Bishop play in
the season-opening victory.
Joseph was 20-of-31 passing for 196 yards and added 21 yards rushing,
including an eight-yard TD run in the third that capped a nice 95-yard,
14-play drive and cut Hamilton’s lead to 21-13. But Joseph was also the
victim of some dropped passes and an Arland Bruce III fumble in the
third that snuffed out a promising drive.
“It’s no secret, they outplayed us,” Joseph said. “We have to correct the mistakes we made.
“If we do, we’re a better team than what you saw tonight.”
.Added Stubler: “It doesn’t matter who’s calling the plays. We aren’t performing.”
The contest was as hard-hitting and intense as a usual Hamilton-Toronto encounter is.
Argos defensive tackle Adriano Belli was ejected on the final play of
the third for rough play. Then with 8:38 remaining to play, Toronto’s
Kenny Wheaton knocked Hamilton’s Jason French silly with a
bone-crunching hit.
Hamilton’s Nick Setta booted four converts, a field goal and single.
Toronto’s Mike Vanderjagt added two field goals and a convert.
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