OVFL: Lessons learned as JV Ironmen fall to Mississauga

“This was a very emotional game,” McGuire reflected, “even though we fell short from a football perspective, we came up big emotionally and that’s how you have to play if you want to win. This was a huge step for us.”

Fell short they did as the Mississauga Warriors outmatched the Ironmen in a 29-3 win. While an outsider may look at the score and cringe, a football pundit such as McGuire saw many positives in the loss. He almost seemed elated that the game played out the way it did.

“Mississauga is loaded with talent. They’re a big, strong, well-coached team,” acclaimed McGuire, “but they are also a beatable team. We saw some weaknesses that we feel we can exploit if we get the chance. Full credit to Mississauga, but I feel that the game was much closer than the final score indicated.”

The game was in reach at the half. Hamilton’s defence played outstanding holding Mississauga to a mere 7 points in the first two quarters of play.

“Defensively, that was our best game of the year,” said McGuire, “we didn’t miss many tackles and we shut them down in the first half. Our d-line was amazing; I bet you their quarterback too more hits in that game than he’s taken all season. The did a great job getting pressure on him.”

The defence wasn’t the only unit stepping up. McGuire credits the strong play of his special teams to being the difference in the first half, seeing kicker Anthony Bellardini nailing a field goal at the end of the half to make the score a manageable 7-3.

“Special teams has been a weakness for us, but they played awesome,” he praised, “he had excellent kick coverage, our punter did a good job keeping it away from their returners and even that lone field goal gave us some confidence heading into the half.”

As often is the case in the game of football, the difference proved to be one or two missed plays that easily could’ve gone the other way. While McGuire praised his defensive unit for playing what he felt was their “best game of the year”, quarterback Liam Putt and the offence struggled to find consistency and had what McGuire admitted was probably their worst game of the year.

“Liam wasn’t his usual self,” his coach observed, “I mean, he was coming from a wedding, so he didn’t get to the field until 15 minutes before kickoff. I don’t think he was mentally prepared for that game and it showed. We had wide-open receivers that we missed and some miscues on offence, but Liam’s a competitor and I’m willing to bet that he’s going to come out next week against Kingston and have his best game of the season.”

Saturday’s game marks only the second time this season that Hamilton has been on the wrong side of the scoreboard (their only other loss coming against the Essex Ravens back in week 2). The loss also snaps Hamilton’s impressive 3 game winning streak. However any negatives that one would assume comes with a lopsided loss like this are virtually non-existent.

“The players were very positive on the bus ride home,” said McGuire, “I mean, you wouldn’t think they would be after a 29-3 loss, but the guys were all smiling and everyone felt good. They’re understanding what it takes to be a champion in this league.”

Looking ahead to next week, McGuire expects to continue to tweak his new offensive packages and defensive schemes as the playoffs approach. Having fallen behind early in the second half, Putt was forced to run a hurry-up offense, which threw the timing off. McGuire doesn’t expect that to be the case next week against Kingston.

“Kingston is in for a big surprise if they think that we’re content just sitting on our playoff spot,” he said, “they have to step onto our field and I think our guys are going to be fired up for this game.”

The Hamilton Ironmen will host the Kingston Grenadiers in the final game of the regular season next Sunday at Ron Joyce Stadium. Game time is scheduled for 1:00pm.