Harassing my profile and shit is a sign that you peasants are on the decline, Google. Cut it out!
CALGARY -- It must have seemed safe at the time, with the roar from the stands echoing into the dressing room. Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker Tad Kornegay ran to the locker room at halftime, located a mobile device and exclaimed to the digital world: "We up Rider nation! Let's put them away now!"
Not only was the team leading, it seemed to add another shovel full on the legacy of the Montreal Alouettes with every series. It was wildly premature, as the Roughriders melted down in the final seconds to lead to a 33-yard field goal from Damon Duval on the final play of the game.
Duval had sent an earlier attempt wide right, only to have the Roughriders get caught for having too many men on the field. The final moments stunned the green-themed crowd at McMahon Stadium, giving the Alouettes a 28-27 win in the 97th Grey Cup.
The Alouettes, who posted a franchise record 15-3 record over the regular season, won their second Grey Cup of the decade. Quarterback Anthony Calvillo improved his record in the big game to 2-5, exorcising the demons that had followed him for the entire week's build-up.
Calvillo had been unsettled in the first half, playing as though he had been visited by the ghost of Grey Cups past at the team hotel on Saturday night. He had spent the week discussing his renewed professional spirit, but looked an awful lot like the man who had been at the helm of five losses in six previous Grey Cup appearances.
His first pass skipped incomplete and to nobody in particular. He misfired on three of his next four passes, and compounded the team's early jitters with a fumble that handed the ball to Saskatchewan eight yards from the end zone.
Roughriders slotback Andy Fantuz made a cut to his right that nearly broke the ankles of the linebacker assigned to coverage, hauling in the short pass for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead a play after Calvillo's fumble. The roar from the stands rumbled across the field like Prairie thunder.
Saskatchewan built a 17-3 lead it carried into halftime, with Durant playing with every ounce of the composure that Calvillo should have been displaying. Montreal's offence tore through the regular season, averaging a league-high 33.3 points per game, powered by a cadre of veterans whose sworn mission was to avenge their Grey Cup loss on home soil last fall.
The Alouettes managed one lonely point in the second half of a 22-14 loss to the Calgary Stampeders last year, but any lessons they might have learned seemed lost as the sun set on Southern Alberta. Montreal's drive chart in the first half could well have belonged to the hapless Toronto Argonauts, featuring six punts, two fumbles and a field goal.
Saskatchewan punted four times, but the offence seemed to be in calmer hands with Durant. The 27-year-old fielded a bad snap, evaded a fierce two-pronged pass rush and made the smart decision to throw the ball out of bounds instead of trying to force the play once the Roughriders took the lead.
Durant was clearly the second-most popular quarterback in the build-up to kickoff. In his first season at the helm, he led the team to a first place finish in the West Division and the team's first home final in three decades, and in the rare instances when he stumbled last night, his defence bailed him out.
He was intercepted late in the third quarter, only to have the Saskatchewan defence force another Montreal two-and-out. The Alouettes had been threatening to rally, with Calvillo having found Jamel Richardson at the end of a nine-play, 74-yard drive, but the defence did its best to keep it from becoming a trend.
Calvillo was sacked in back-to-back passing situations early in the third quarter, and the second knocked the Alouettes back eight yards and out of field goal range. The offence looked lost, nothing like the unit that mauled the B.C. Lions 56-18 in the East Division final, when it pounced on every mistake the Lions made.
With help from running back Wes Cates, Durant led a backbreaking drive early in the fourth quarter, marching the Roughriders 75 yards and into the end zone. The last play was the kind of run they will replay for years in Regina, with Durant running 16 yards into the end zone, bouncing off a tackler just as he crossed the line for a 27-11 lead.
Another rare Calvillo flourish led the Alouettes right back, capped with a scoring run by Avon Cobourne and a successful two-point conversion. Suddenly, it was 27-19, and the tension build when Durant made an ill-advised pass intercepted by Jerald Brown, which led to an 11-yard scoring pass to Ben Cahoon. Montreal missed the two-point conversion.
National Post
sfitzgerald@nationalpost.com
