MOSAIC PLACE RECAP: BOMBERS 22 RIDERS 7

And while a first-half nightmare probably had him rethinking those thoughts briefly on Saturday, the sentiment certainly held true by the time the final whistle blew as his Winnipeg Blue Bombers were victorious 22-7 over the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

“Tonight, I definitely had the most fun I had since probably college for me,” said Nichols, who was 21-for-30 for 283 yards with a major, an interception and two fumbles while improving to 6-2 in starts in 2015.

“To get back to that is just awesome. Sometimes in the business you can start having it feel like a job. Right now, it feels like you’re just out playing with the boys.”

Nichols, who was acquired two weeks ago from Edmonton, said one of the keys was the belief he felt coming from his teammates in Winnipeg.

“I just really felt, as a quarterback, you have to be in that position where everyone believes in you and trust you and I felt I have that here,” said Nichols. “At times that was lost on me in Edmonton.”

The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Bombers, who improved to 4-7.

The Riders dropped to 1-10 after claiming their first victory of the year in last week’s Labour Day Classic over the Blue Bombers.

Julian Feoli-Gudino’s first touchdown of the season in the third quarter proved the winning score after breaking a 7-7 deadlock.

Khalil Bass’ 59-yard interception returned for a touchdown, capped off 22 straight points for the club after the Riders grabbed an early 7-0 in the first frame.

The Bombers trotted out their eighth different quarterback in their eighth straight Banjo Bowl Saturday and it didn’t look good from the get-go.

Nichols’ night started out on the rough side, evidenced by two fumbles and an interception.

The Bombers turned the ball over three times in the first 15 minutes – five total in the half – while producing just 14 total yards on offence.

“I thought our defence played outstanding, they really gave us a chance to win tonight,” Riders receiver Rob Bagg said. “The offence was quite far from being good enough today.”

Bagg half-heartedly credited the Bombers defence.

“They did their job, but mostly, we didn’t do ours,” he said. “Really, most of our problems were because of our own mistakes. It really wasn’t what they were doing, it was our lack of our ability to do things properly.”

Winnipeg had a glorious chance early on in the first frame after Riders’ punter Ray Early netted just four yards on a shank off the outside of his foot.

But with the Bombers on second down in the red zone, defensive end John Chick split the offensive line of Winnipeg’s and strip-sacked Nichols, who watched helplessly as Jeff Knox Jr. pounced on the loose ball.

The comedy of errors continued at the end of the Bombers next drive as kicker Lirim Hajrullahu failed to handle the snap and was sacked deep in Winnipeg’s end.

The turnover proved costly two plays later as quarterback Brett Smith found receiver Bagg in the back of the end zone for a 6-0 lead. Paul McCallum missed the ensuing convert.

“Those situations happen and you have to take advantage of them,” said Riders interim head coach Bob Dyce. “Not to take anything away from Winnipeg, they’re a good football team, but if you look at some of the penalties we took and our lack of execution, we’re not good enough at this point to win a game when we don’t take advantage of all of our opportunities.”

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said, despite the five turnovers in the first half, there wasn’t that feel on the sidelines the team was going to let the game slip away.

“Our defence was playing so well, they weren’t going to let it bother them tonight,” he said.

Nick Moore led the Bombers in receiving with 103 yards on three receptions before leaving the game with a lower-body injury in the third quarter. He did not return. No update on his status was available after the game.

(The Canadian Press)

HEAD COACH DYCE

– The Bombers are good team.  They played with a lot of intensity.  We had a lot of situations we didn’t take advantage of and in our position, you have to.  We didn’t have the protection we needed at times too.

– When you have opportunities like those takeaways, you have to put points on the board.  That’s what you face with a young QB and it’s not just Brett.  We took penalties, and as a unit we need to be better.

– When we talk about going forward, we talked about it at halftime again, we can’t afford to go backwards.  When you put Brett in 2nd-and-17 or 2nd-and-24, coach Jacques doesn’t have a lot of plays for those situations.

– It was a combination of things, like I said.  We just never really got into a rhythm and that was a challenge.  The defense stood up a lot and there’s a lot to be commended on there.  We have to go back to the drawing board a bit, and go forward from there.

– We talk about everything we do, we do for us.  We stay together and stay strong for each other.  You never really know what’s going to happen in the future.  You have to take one play at a time, one day at a time, and get better with each opportunity.

SB ROB BAGG

– It was tough.  Our defense played outstanding.  That game could’ve been ugly if the defense hadn’t played so well.  On offense, we just killed ourself today.  That’s all you can really say about it.

– I’m gonna give Winnipeg credit but at the same time, it wouldn’t matter if we were going against air.  We were just horrible.  I’m not looking forward to looking at the film.  It was just a bad day on offense.

– I enjoy going to slot.  I played that all college.  I’m trying to do the things that Getzlaf does so well.  At the same time, I’m just trying to be better and we all have to be a ton better.

– We’re gonna continue to fight and battle and if you want to be a part of the solution, you have to play well now.  We’ll play until we’re statistically out of it.  You might as well do it right if you’re going to do it.

DE ALEX HALL

– We knew we had to win this game.  It is tough.  It sucks.  We needed to string some wins together.

– We were just trying to do what we’d been doing in that first half, stay consistent as possible.  We tried to continue that in the second half but we lagged a little bit.  That was it.

– Nichols did his thing.  He learned the offense on a short week, or whatever it was, but he seized the opportunity and played really good.

– We wanted to cut down on penalties and stupid little things like that.  14 penalties are unacceptable.

– Hey, we just have to keep pushing.  Show that you still want it, and individually do your job to help the team win.  Do you job.