Cornford and co. aim for title

Published Friday November 18th, 2011 By CHRISTOPHER CAMERON For The Daily Gleaner

After winning the inaugural Atlantic Football League championship two years ago, the University of New Brunswick Red Bombers were kept out of the league final last season. But they’re back this year looking for another championship.

Bombers starting quarterback Brendan Cornford has been with the team every year since the AFL began three years ago.

He was also the winning quarterback in the championship game in the inaugural AFL season, something he hopes will help his team when they take on the Holland College Hurricanes tomorrow at 1 p.m. in Charlottetown.

Although he has that experience and plans on using that himself, he says the AFL is much different now than it was two years ago.

“Honestly over the past few years since that game happened the league has changed so much,” said Cornford, who played his high school football with Leo Hayes Lions. “It is so much better overall now. Every team plays at the exact same level and there aren’t really any underdogs in our league. It’s just an awesome feeling knowing that every team can score and they can stop defensively wise. Being one of the four teams and making it to the final is pretty awesome.”

The Red Bombers are the only team to beat the Hurricanes this season, coming after Cornford brought his team from behind late in game to win 28-26 in the final regular season game for both teams a couple of weeks ago. He hopes the trend continues today.

“That whole game we did pretty well passing wise,” he said. “Running wise we did pretty well as well,” he said. “I threw four touchdowns that game so it wasn’t really an issue passing against them the last time we played them. It just took some time to get our offence to click. Once the receivers and I got our game together it was a perfect day.”

Cornford says being the only team to beat Holland College plays a minor role in the team’s confidence level. But it doesn’t change much.

“It definitely helps us out, but doesn’t really change our mindset,” he said. “We’re still going to play as hard as we possibly can. We know that we can beat them, but we know that they can score too.”

The Bombers needed a point on the last play to beat the UNBSJ SeaWolves 23-22 in the semifinal at BMO Centre last weekend. Cornford says they haven’t changed anything. At this stage of the season, they’re just continuing to fine-tune.

“We upped to an extra practice this week,” said Cornford. “We’re just going over the basic stuff, not really learning anything new, just going over what we already know. We just want to make sure everybody knows what they need to do and where they need to be.”

What has changed in recent weeks are the weather conditions.

“We practiced Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week all at 8 p.m. so it’s pretty already pretty cold out,” he said. “Wednesday night it was raining pretty hard, but we still practiced,” he said.

“We practice in those conditions as hard as we do when it’s nice out because we’re at the point we can’t afford to lose a game. We need to be ready for whatever weather comes at us.”

The Weather Network forecast in Charlottetown called for a few flurries Friday evening, with winds from the west at 50 kilometres per hour. Game time temperature Saturday is projected at eight degrees Celsius, with a 20 per-cent chance of precipitation and partially sunny skies.

Cornford said he believes the team has the skills to win the league championship for a second time in the league’s three year history, but it will come down to how badly the team wants it on Saturday.

“We’ve just got to play one of the best games of the year,” he said. “It’s the championship, we’ve just got to let it all go and leave it on the field.”