Saskatchewan Roughriders’ head coach Corey Mace was not happy with his team after a combative training camp practice on Thursday.
“Just some undisciplined football. We’re trying to get better,” Mace told the media after calling practice early. “What we’ve found is there’s still room for improvement certainly on the penalty side, the ones that you can avoid anyway. We didn’t execute that today, so we just handled a little bit of business.”
According to multiple reports, the unusually heated practice session featured several altercations between offensive and defensive players, particularly in the trenches. After the fourth such incident, Mace sent his team to the line to run wind sprints as punishment. Unsatisfied with their response afterwards, he dismissed the whole group to the locker room.
“I don’t mind the physicality, I don’t mind the compete — we encourage that kind of stuff. But anyhing after the whistle, there’s zero tolerance for that,” Mace insisted. “We’ve got to figure that out. I think, honestly, for the better part of camp, we’ve been A1 on that. Today just wasn’t a good day, and it had to be addressed.”
The Riders have struggled with discipline for the past few years, with their status as the most penalized team in the league contributing to several late season collapses and leading to the firing of former head coach Craig Dickenson. While things improved during Mace’s first year at the helm and their 107 accepted penalties ranked middle of the pack, the team still led the CFL with 23 unneccesary roughness penalties last year and was the only franchise to have multiple rough play disqualifications.
The head coach is trying to nip any potential for a repeat in the bud and it elicited a response from several players, as veteran leaders made their displeasure known to the rest of the group during the sprints. While Mace is glad to see self-policing, it happened just a little too late on this occasion.
“During things like that, it’s a their backs are against the wall kind of deal. Even the receivers finishing the runs with the big guys, you want that. The one thing is we are one, we are family, and we do it together. We keep it together. If we don’t keep it together, we’re doing it all together,” he explained of the punishment.
“To hear those guys stepping up and pushing the standard and the expectations of what it is that we want to accomplish, you’re pleased with that aspect of it. But ultimately, I’d rather just run more reps here.”
Rookies first reported for camp in Saskatoon on May 7 and veterans joined them on May 11. Though he is disappointed in his players’ outbursts on Thursday, Mace also understands that the tension and desire to hit a real opponent has reached it’s pinnacle after battling with nothing but the same faces for two weeks.
“It is that part of camp too, I’m not ignorant to that fact, but it doesn’t change the standard of how we want to be in practice and also in games too,” he stressed. “I’m certain that they’re just ready to play against somebody else, but we can’t just overlook that the point of us being out here is spending time to find ways to get better.”
The Riders will finally get a chance to take out their frustration on a different jersey this weekend. Saskatchewan’s first preseason game will take place on Saturday, May 24 when they visit the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at 4:00 p.m. EST.
The post ‘There’s zero tolerance for that’: Corey Mace makes Riders run, calls practice early after ‘undisciplined’ penalties appeared first on 3DownNation.
