Green and White game gives Riders’ players and fans the return of football

Thousands of loud Roughrider fans flocked into Mosaic Stadium to watch the Riders play the Riders.

The score ultimately didn’t matter,  as the real winners of the annual Green and White game were the fans.

For Nathan Clearihue, the feeling of having the opportunity to see some of his favourite players back in action after almost two years was immeasurable.

“You have no idea how excited I am, standing in front of these gates, it’s almost too much,” he said. “I really can’t believe we are finally back here, it’s an incredible feeling that is hard to explain.

“I love the feeling of being back here.”

It’s not just the fans that were excited — the coaching staff was excited to see how players would perform after two weeks of training camp.

With no pre-season games on the schedule, Saturday’s scrimmage was the only opportunity for head coach Craig Dickenson and the rest of the coaching staff to see how their players would perform in a game-like environment.

The game ended up being a defensive affair. There were no touchdowns scored as the only points came from three field goals by international kicker, Henry Nell, with his longest coming from 38 yards out. There was also a single point scored by Jon Ryan’s monster 64-yard punt into the end-zone.

The defence made it very difficult for any of the five Riders’ quarterbacks to get into a rhythm — Cody Fajardo, Mason Fine and Paxton Lynch all threw interceptions on the afternoon while Isaac Harker and Tom Flacco had very close calls with passes that were nearly picked off while bouncing off defenders hands.

Defensive lineman, Garrett Marino, made his impact felt on Saturday as he brought constant pressure to the line — something that Dickenson took note of.

“He has done a good job, we have had to reel him in a little bit. He was really aggressive and really pushing the pile early in camp and we had to visit with him and say ‘Hey, we want you to be physical and we want you to knock people back, but we also want to take care of each other and not hurt our teammates,’” Dickenson said. “He has responded really well. He’s taking coaching well and you can tell he really wants to make this team.

“I think he’s got a lot of respect for the offensive line across from him and I think he’s really jelling in terms of fitting into this locker room, he’s a good football player and it’s nice to have him out on that field.”

Receiver Mitchell Picton, also impressed Dickenson with his offensive skill-set on Saturday.

“We can put him in any position among the receivers, his versatility is going to be a real strength and give him a chance to make the club just because of the fact he can play any number of positions on the offence,” Dickenson said when asked about the Regina local. “I noticed him, he definitely shows that he knows his position, he knows the offence and when he gets the ball thrown to him, he catches it.”

Saturday’s scrimmage was cut short in time with the 3rd and 4th quarters being reduced by a few minutes each, largely in part to conditioning concerns.

That was the biggest takeaway from Dickenson on Saturday as he said he knew his players would need more conditioning before the Riders’ season opener against the BC Lions on Aug 6.

“We need to get in better shape. I think that was the one thing I noticed the most,” he said. “We tried hard at times and we executed at times but I thought when we got tired, our execution suffered a little bit and I started seeing guys struggling to get lined up.

“I would say one of our main focuses this next week is to get our conditioning a little bit better.”

Now that this scrimmage has wrapped up, the coaching staff will have their hands full with decisions ahead of the Friday deadline for roster cuts.

“We are going to try to practice at least once, if not twice in pads, just to let the guys have one more chance at cracking the team,” he said. “It’s going to be important for them to get out there.”

There were 2,882 people in attendance and the final score of the game was seven to six for team White.

NOTES

Jacob Janke (knee) did not finish the scrimmage after he hurt his knee, no timetable set for his return nor is there any information yet on the severity of his injury.