The Saskatchewan Roughriders will try and turn the page from a tough 36-27 loss to the Edmonton Elks as they begin a two-game trek away from home.
Head coach Craig Dickenson made his weekly appearance on the SportsCage on Monday alongside Michael Ball.
He said the green and white are ready for this week’s game in Ottawa.
“The beauty of pro sports, the beauty of sports in general is that you get a chance to reload. “
The Riders have dropped their last four games on the road after opening up with a pair of wins in Alberta. Dickenson believes the beginning of the recent road games has been the team’s downfall.
“We haven’t started fast and we’ve been playing catch up.” said the Riders head coach. “I think it’s important that we come out of the gates firing and playing good football right from the get go and trying to keep it going throughout the game.”
Following their practice on Wednesday, the team will travel to Ottawa ahead of Friday’s game. Dickenson feels the extra day in the nation’s capital will be a benefit for the team.
“I think the time change affected us quite a bit in Halifax, it always affect when you go east, we want to try and get ahead of that a little bit.”
Walking Wounded
The Roughriders got hit with the injury bug at the wrong time on Friday, losing four defensive players loss to the Elks.
DL Anthony Lanier II (Hip), DL Miles Brown(Groin), DL Nic Dheilly (Foot), and LB Justin Herdman-Reed (Quad) did not practice on Monday after they were all injured against Edmonton.
Dickenson said the team faced an uphill battle with the four players going down in the second half but felt they put up a valiant effort.
“I felt like our guys tried as hard as they could in that game against Edmonton but we just ran out of gas, just didn’t have enough in the tank, and didn’t have enough energy to stop them at the end.”
With so many in-game injuries, the Roughriders made multiple changes to their defensive and special teams personnel.
Some of the players who had take on bigger roles included DE Lake Korte-Moore had to take on extra special team duty while filling in for Lanier at DE.
Meanwhile, LB A.J. Allen had to shift to a pass-rushing role with the injuries piling up at DE.
Dickenson said Lanier and Herdman-Reed are questionable for Friday’s game, while Brown and Dheilly will likely be out with their respective injuries.
He noted Brown has a significant groin pull.
QB Comfort Zone
With four games of experience now as the starting quarterback, Dickenson has been pleased with the play of Jake Dolegala.
“He’s (Dolegala) going to keep playing.” said the Riders head coach.
With only one interception over his last four games, Dickenson says Dolegala has found his groove at quarterback.
“He’s got good poise, he’s makes good decisions, he gets the ball out of his hand quick, you can see he’s getting more comfortable.”
