The 2-4-1 Invaders, whose roster includes around 40 per cent players from the east end, will have a tough time achieving their pre-season goal of a home playoff game since the 3-2 Toronto Maddogs and Tri City Outlaws are both ahead in the race for fourth place in the eight-team league.
While not having that the home playoff date hurts on the business side, Invaders head coach Ken Evraire says being the road team can be beneficial from a football perspective since they’ll enter the contest with an “us against the world, nothing to lose” type of mentality.
Unless their opponents happen to be from Sarnia or Sault Ste. Marie (not a possibility in the first playoff round anyhow). During the regular season, those destinations meant a late-night departure on the team bus for the game the next day.
“A lot of guys work late, so we’re not getting too much sleep,” notes Nigel Couchman, a receiver who joined the team founded by his former Cumberland Panther teammates Erik Faucon and James McAllister. “But the road trips are a lot of fun.”
An overnight bus ride might not be the best recipe for on-field success, although Evraire sees it as a useful team-bonding tool.
“There’s sort of a romantic notion behind it where the guys go on the bus overnight, play football and then come back – have a couple beers, watch a couple bad movies on the bus,” Evraire explains. “At the end of the day, I think they’ll forget the scores of the games – yeah, we lost some games, but there’s memories and friendships being built, so when we come back next year, we’re ready to go to war as a group.”
And thanks to those previous road trips, the Invaders are starting to find ways to cope with a bus packed full with 50 players.
“The key is to find a good small guy to sit beside on the bus,” Couchman smiles. “Then you give yourself a little extra room and hopefully catch a few ‘Z’s before you get up and go play a game. And some of the bigger guys have also mastered lying on the floor in the aisles.”
Evraire identifies many other areas that his team hasn’t quite mastered yet. Reasons for the slide after their 2-0 start include injuries, the inexperience of their three young quarterbacks, offensive-linemen missing action due to work and family commitments, and a defence hurt by too many penalties.
But the Invaders remain hopeful they can turn things around in time for the post-season, which begins Aug. 14.
“Every team makes the playoffs, so it’s just a question of hitting full stride by then,” Couchman notes. “Now is the time to come together as a group more than ever.”
