Hot seat cooling off

Strain takes toll on Bomber boss

Dave Ritchie plopped himself down in his office chair, the sun fighting to get through the cracks in the venetian blinds behind his desk. It was late yesterday morning, the heavy cloud having given way to a bright, blue July sky. Outside, the mercury was finally rising to the level we expect around here.

You could say the same thing about the state of Ritchie's football team.

The previously winless Blue Bombers, losers of seven of their last nine games, a downslide not seen in these parts since the dark days of the late 1990s, had a reason to feel good about themselves again.

Thursday night's 32-15, victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders, while not a work of art by any stretch, was certainly an improvement over those messy, finger-paint exercises of Weeks 1 and 2.

And it certainly provided a reprieve for the head coach in the hot seat, the man many predict won't make it to Labour Day.

"It's good to get that thing off your back," Ritchie said.

That "thing" was no heavier than a whisper, but an incessant one that had the CFL's longest-serving head coach with the same team getting the axe if his club had fallen to 0-3.

NEVER KNOW

We'll never know if that would have happened. But we do know, from Ritchie's own admission, that the strain on him these last two weeks has taken its toll.

"I don't try to show it," a spent Ritchie had said in the moments after Thursday's game. "I stay inside myself, pretty much."

Yesterday, the Bomber boss admitted he got a little emotional after the win, particularly when told some of his players had dedicated it to him.

"I think it's great," he said. "A lot of times, that's what's said, but the guy doesn't have his job. I'm glad I still have my job. I hope they come play like that all the time."

He's right. All too often, players will talk about how much respect they had for their coach -- right after the guy's been canned.

The Bombers, to their credit, stood up before that happened. Leading the way were two players who, more than any, owed a debt of loyalty to their field boss.

Start with running back Charles Roberts, who treats most team rules like suggestions. The little guy would have driven most coaches crazy by now, but Ritchie still goes to bat for him every day.

Roberts reneged on media interviews the day before the game, drawing criticism in this space that he wasn't a leader.

Thursday he was lugging the offence on his 5-foot-6 frame, to the tune of 110 yards and two second-half touchdowns, including the clincher with 2 1/2 minutes to go.

Then there's Elfrid Payton, the freelancing defensive end everybody else in the CFL keeps discarding -- and Ritchie keeps bringing back.

"We're going to keep coach Ritchie around a while," Payton was saying before the Saskatchewan game. "He's my buddy. He ain't going nowhere."

No, he ain't, thanks in large part to Payton's two fumble recoveries and a forced fumble which led to the winning touchdown.

There were others in the winning locker-room who, no doubt, ate up the pre-game motivational speech delivered by their boss.

And the boss's boss was suitably impressed.

"Based on the effort and performance... there was something done in that locker-room," Bomber GM Brendan Taman said. "And I give Dave credit. He was very motivated and that carried over to them. He was full metal jacket."

So for now, the Ritchie loyalists have taken the heat off.

That's the thing about Thursday's win, though -- it won't mean a hill of beans if the Bombers follow it up with a stinker in Ottawa next Friday.

As Ritchie himself said, lose one and they're back to the same place.

"They did it once," the coach said. "Let's go do it again."

Around here, we expect nothing less.

[Unfortunately, an error has occured.]