Unhappy with last weekend's performance, Westshore Rebels head coach John Cardilicchia made it clear what he expects from his sa国际传媒 Football Conference club.
"It's been an intense week of practice," Cardilic-chia said of preparations for tonight's game in Kamloops against the Broncos. "It was pretty loud and clear this week. I wasn't pulling any punches.
"On Tuesday night we had a big team meeting, just letting guys know they need to get their priorities straight and they have to perform on game day," he added. "We were pretty disappointed with a lot of the performances by a lot of the veterans last week and a lot of people, in general. We can't play like that and expect to win a big game."
There were none bigger than the battle for second place, which the Rebels handed to the Langley Rams in a discouraging 41-7 thumping. But there is no looking back now.
"Message delivered. Message received," said Cardilicchia. "We've been hitting this week more than we have all year. Can we afford to because we're injured? No. But we have to because that's the mentality we have to have to toughen up and put the onus on guys to be more physical."
The veteran coach laid down the law with his 6-2 troops, who had a six-game win streak snapped by that loss.
The Broncos, meanwhile, are 2-6 and tied with the Okanagan Sun for the last playoff spot. The Vancouver Island Raiders lead the pack at 7-0-1, with Langley at 6-1-1. Westshore will wrap up regular-season play the following weekend in Nanaimo against the Raiders.
"We can't look past Kamloops. This is everything to them," said Cardilicchia. "They have a veteran squad that wants to be in the playoffs. They need to win this game to secure a spot, so they're going to be coming with everything they are worth."
The Rebels offensive line, which didn't get the job done last week, is certainly looking for redemption.
"We have to go out and get those hard yards, get to the second level [of the defence]," said Rob Smith. "We have to be a bit more aggressive in knowing where we're going."
They'll want to create a big push for running back Greg Morris, who is now 73 yards away from a club record for rushing in a season. Morris currently has 1,066 yards after being credited for 124 last week. His 57-yard touchdown, which was originally called a swing pass, was adjusted to a lateral, so he easily eclipsed the 1,000-yard barrier.
He is definitely within reach of Sam Adu's club mark of 1,139, set in 2010.
Morris is also the first Rebels' back to record back-to-back 1,000-yard campaigns since Sasa Petrovic did it in 1987-88. Morris is also two touchdowns shy of tying the club record for major scores in a season, which Blaine Kruger holds with 15.
"We have two games left. We just want to keep up the intensity," said Smith. "We've had a couple of hiccups, but we can usually run on most defences. And we have to be better at protecting [quarterback] Mark [Black]. He took a lot of unnecessary shots where we didn't finish our blocks, myself included."
