Roughriders disappointing in first pre-season outing

First impressions are everything in life, especially in sports. You only get one opportunity to make a good one.

B.J. Coleman got several opportunities to make some kind of impression Saturday night but failed.

He admits his first CFL outing was an eye opener.

"I don't think it exactly went the way we drew it up. The best thing about it was I had to go out there and experience that."

With Darian Durant getting the night off, all the focus shifted to the battle of the backups.

Coleman, seeing his first action since an arena league game a year ago threw two interceptions in his CFL debut. 

He said the Lions threw some looks at him that he didn't experience in his first two weeks of training camp.

Whatever progress Coleman made in Saskatoon to be number two on the depth chart, he may have taken a step back after his first pre-season game. 

He's hoping to get another opportunity next week.

"Each day you got to come to work with your hard hat and get better hopefully," he said. "As coaches and players you want to see progression from week one to week two so hopefully next week when we go to Edmonton we see a little better performance offensively. It starts with the quarterbacks."

Chris Jones, in his debut as the Riders' Head Coach,  said the play of his quarterbacks was very disappointing. He said neither Coleman or Brett Smith played very well.

"They played a poor football game, it was their first time in this offense. I fully expect them to come back with their nose to the grindstone and they will play better next week."  

Brett Smith was just as hard on himself. He completed some long plays including a 54 yard touchdown toss to Clarence Denmark, but he spent a good portion of the game scrambling.

"I got to get more reps and I think I have to have more trust in my guys and not try and do it all myself. We have a great supporting cast."

If there were no doubts about Darian Durant, the play of the backups wouldn't be an issue. But Durant hasn't finished a game since Labour Day in 2014.

Consecutive season ending injuries have cast doubts on his durability. Jones says they haven't yet decided how much time Durant will get next Saturday in Edmonton.

The coach says there's plenty of water under the bridge to get through first. Such as all the cuts they have to make by Tuesday's CFL deadline.

It didn't sound like they would waste time making them. In fact, most of the decisions were probably made on the trip back to their training camp home in Saskatoon after the game.

"Once you start trimming your roster down you start zoning in a little bit, there's not so many guys in the room and then all of a sudden the focus starts to get there a little more."   

Bright lights and power outages

Robb Bagg showed why he will be a go to guy in the offense. He and Coleman connected on a 55 yard pass and run on the first series of the game.

Bagg admitted it was a little strange without Weston Dressler and Chris Getzlaf in the lineup. The players are now with Winnipeg and Edmonton respectively.

"It's tough, it's different. They will be life long friends, we were blessed to play eight years together. I'm really pumped with the new group we have. Over the last two weeks I got to know them. It's a tremendous group of guys, most of them are pretty young, but I'm enjoying my time with them."     

It was a rough night for the old stadium in the final pre-season game that will be played there. There was a one hour delay due to a power outage.

SaskPower confirmed the outage was caused by someone shooting off a confetti cannon at power lines.