With four games remaining on their schedule, the Saskatchewan Roughriders will face the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Friday night as they look to start the playoff stretch drive against the rivals who have won the first two matchups between the teams this season.
If Winnipeg collects the win tonight, they will clinch a home playoff game. At this point, it’s more than likely the CFL’s Western Final will be taking place at IG Field in Winnipeg in November.
The playoffs are anything but a certainty for the Riders, their path to a home field Grey Cup will likely have to require a lengthy detour through the eastern part of the country in a crossover playoff scenario, but with an important matchup against the Ti-Cats looming next week, the green and white need a couple of more wins before they can put an x beside their name.
Some good news for Saskatchewan this week is the return of the left side of their starting offensive line. Dan Clark, Logan Ferland and Terran Vaughn are all back in the starting lineup. Clark has been out since Week 2 with a broken fibula, Vaughn has been out because of a combination of injury and personal reasons since August, while Ferland returns after missing the last two games with a back injury.
Kooper Richardson will start at right tackle, the 24 year old made his debut for the Riders earlier this month in Winnipeg.
Even though the Riders offensive line got good good news on the injury front, the same can not be said for the team’s running backs.
Kienan LaFrance will be the only natural running back for the Riders, as he will be the team’s starting running back. Receivers including Kian Schaffer-Baker and Kyran Moore are expected to receive some carries as well.
Earlier on Friday, the Riders announced they’ve resigned Shaq Cooper.
Duke Williams will miss another game due to an ankle injury. The receiver began practicing this week, but sat out on Wednesday due to his injury flaring up.
Both teams are coming off a bye week, as well both teams suffered losses heading into their respective breaks. The Riders were defeated by Edmonton, while Winnipeg was stunned by the Hamilton Ti-Cats.
Head coach Craig Dickenson believes Winnipeg’s effort from the Hamilton is something that won’t be repeated again.
“They’re going to regroup, that was probably their worst game of the year, I think we can all agree on that. They’re such a veteran team, I don’t think you’ll see that too often.”
Meanwhile, safety Mike Edem said it was important for the team to look back at the Ti-Cat and Bomber game to see if there were anything that the green and white could use this week.
“If you’re a western opponent, how could you not look at that game, in the dominant fashion that they did it, you have to look at that game it but with a grain of salt put it in context, we’re not Hamilton, we’re not playing in Hamilton, so you can look at it to an extent.”
Gameday coverage on 620 CKRM begins with Countdown to Kickoff at 3:00. Michael Ball and Luc Mullinder will have all of the action beginning with the opening kickoff at 6:00.
