UPON FURTHER REVIEW, GAELS WERE OK

Forty-eight hours later, the general overreaction to my Queen's Golden Gaels' Homecoming loss to Windsor really does seem silly, but so be it.

The Kingston Whig-Standard account has all the details. As sports editor Claude Scilley notes, Queen's defence was missing three linebackers (including all-star Ian Hazlett) from the second quarter on, yet shut down Windsor's much ballyhooed running backs, Daryl Stephenson and Nick Romain.

Trouble was, the Lancers defence was equally good and confused the Gaels and their second-year quarterback, Danny Brannagan, with a lot of shifting formations and different packages. Mike Morencie, the Windsor coach, often had 16 players in the defensive huddle, pulling four off at the last second.

So as hopefully noted earlier, Queen's played well enough to win, give or take a few negative plays. (Getting bogged down in bad field position to start the game and the officials ruling an incompletion on a 40-yard catch by Rob Bagg late in the first quarter come to mind, although that's neither here nor there.)

The Gaels defensive unit probably showed it's good enough, when everyone's there (Hazlett is due to have his injured knee examined this week) to keep the team in the games against almost any team in the Ontario University Athletics league, so that's reassuring considering there's back-to-back games against McMaster and Ottawa coming up soon. They'll be a long shot to win, but should be able to stay in both games.

So really, shutting down Windsor while playing short-handed probably did more for Queen's rep around the league than, say, winning a high-scoring shootout.

The post here Saturday was more about one guy having more than a little difficulty taking it in magnaminously. The author would add, "Lesson learned," except the aim here is to be like Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld, where's it funny since the characters never learn anything. Remember, all progress depends on the irrational man.

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There's No "I" In Golden Gaels, But There's Two In "Dickishness" (Sat., Sept. 16)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.