REGINA — It’s safe to say that Saskatchewan Roughriders kicker Alex Hale would like to have back a few of his missed opportunities in the early part of the CFL season.
And likely none more so than the miss he had on Thursday night against the Edmonton Elks.
With 3:17 left in the first-place showdown at Mosaic Stadium, Hale had a field goal attempt from 46 yards that hooked badly left and was run out of the endzone. As fate would have it, those three points would be crucial in the end as the Elks would go on to get a last-second field goal of their own and take a 36-34 win.
The miss, and Hale’s struggles through the first stages of his career, have fans on social media and radio shows demanding his replacement — but head coach Corey Mace was quick to point out in the aftermath of the loss that things weren’t all Hale’s fault.
“A lot of points loom large that you don’t capitalize on and I don’t ever want to put that on Alex,” Mace said. “He gets you three points, if he misses one you miss three points, and we gave up a bunch. There’s so much that goes on in a football game that you can’t pinpoint that. I ain’t putting that on Alex.”
Hale is now 12-for-16 on field goals for the season as well as 20-for-22 on converts. His 75 per cent completion rate is eighth in the league, ahead of only the also-struggling Lirim Hajrullahu of the Toronto Argonauts.
The following day saw The SportsCage’s crew of analysts weigh in, and their consensus take on the whole thing was to bring in a new kicker but keep Hale around and see how he responds to competition.
“I’ve always thought CFL teams should have two kickers on the roster,” said Rider Broadcast Network analyst Luc Mullinder. “You always see that guy behind you, even though you’re friends and you’re family during the season, the presence of someone in your position who can do it well is a good reminder.
“With Hale, there’s only so many times you can go ‘oh, it’s his first year’. We needed that 40-yarder, and whenever the crowd is holding it’s breath and it’s 11 yards out [that shouldn’t happen].”
Mullinder was of the same mind as Mace when it came to the result on Thursday, though — with so many points left on the field, one play wasn’t the deciding factor.
“The Riders had plenty of opportunities to win that game without that field goal… there were a lot of mistakes,” he said. “Do you need the kicking game to get better? Absolutely, but only because there are a lot of things that need to get better from that game. You have to get better in every spot.”
Roughriders legend and TSN analyst Glen Suitor had been asked by SportsCage’s Barney Shynkaruk about the kicking situation a couple of weeks earlier, and his answer then was to let him work through the early issues. Asked the same question Friday, his opinion had changed.
“I think it’s time to bring in another kicker,” he said. “Not to cut Hale… the best thing for any player is to bring in competition. You might say ‘now you’re messing with him and you’re doing tryouts and things. If he can’t handle that mentally in practice, you got the wrong guy.
“The late Don Matthews said to me ‘If you have a bad game, no problem, everybody does. If you have two, it’s a trend and we’re starting to get concerned. If you have three in a row, you probably aren’t going to get to a fourth’. So we’ll see what the Riders do in this situation.”
The one dissenting voice was Arash Madani on his Coast to Coast segment, and he wasn’t afraid to reference what he feels was an off-season mistake by the Riders.
“Be careful what you let out the door sometimes, you know how I feel about Brett Lauther,” Madani said, referring the former Saskatchewan kicker who went through similar issues late last season. He was released by the team in the off-season, signed with Ottawa and hasn’t missed a field goal since, sitting at a perfect 20-for-20 for the Redblacks through six games.
Madani still falls into the ‘let him work through it’ camp, though, largely due to the indecisiveness such a move can bring.
“This becomes an issue because once you start this game of bringing dudes in and auditioning in practice during the season, then it can get really weird. Who’s the guy, who’s not the guy, etcetera.”
Fans will have to wait a few more days to see if the Riders have made any decisions on their kicking game as they return to practice at Mosaic Stadium on Tuesday.
Next action for Saskatchewan is this coming Saturday when they’re at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton for a rematch with the Elks.
