By Riderville

Riderville Report

Jul 26, 2011 | 9:08 AM

What a difference a week makes unless you work at paNOW.com.

I had a good column last week involving a conversation I had with some Roughriders, including my roommate, watching the Hamilton Saskatchewan game. He had some insightful comments, which were backed up by the Riders cutting Tad Kornegay last week following a lacklustre performance.

My column from last week is pertinent now since the Riders came out in their 27-24 win over Montreal which showed the comments about lack of intensity of some veterans had a certain validity.

Rider Head Coach Greg Marshall said there were no style points for a win, which is true. Sure Anthony Calvillo was knocked out by a clean hit, but until he went out, he was not the guy who torched our defense in the first game between the two teams.

The defense brought some intensity and they played very physically against Montreal. The Riders finally got some pressure, doing some interesting stunts against Montreal and physically their defensive secondary were more physical against the receivers and the linebackers were wrapping up their tackles.

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I especially enjoyed my roommate getting into the game and breaking up a pass to Jamal Richardson. The Riders were going to play more man to man against Montreal according to my roommate and I smiled talking with him about how to defend against Jamal Richardson. If the Riders continue to play that way, especially next week against the godless Calgary Stampeders, the Riders could be, are you sitting down for this, tied for second in the western conference.

The Riders started rolling Darian Durant out on offense and that opened things up for the receivers. Chris Getzlaf caught more than he dropped and Terrence Nunn did sell the ball he caught off the turf pretty nicely, even though it was called back. Weston Dressler came through with a good game, even though he got mauled by Dwayne Anderson, formerly of Calgary Stampeders.

Anderson is a cheap shot artist and I was astounded, as was many outside of Montreal, that he was not called for hitting the receiver way down the field. Montreal shot themselves in the foot many times with unnecessary roughness penalties which is a trend that seems to have started in last year's Grey Cup. Montreal has moved from a classy team to a Calgary of the east, with the exception of Calvillo and a few others.

The Riders were shaky in their win, especially in the last couple of minutes when Hugh Charles fumbled the ball. What may have added to the Rider general dysfunction was the failure of the communication system from sidelines to quarterback, resulting in a few time count violations.