Riders to close one practice a week

Chris Jones doesn’t mince words.

“Somebody was watching,” he said Wednesday, in response to a question about a play the Hamilton Tiger-Cats had figured out after two seconds, a timeframe Jones finds suspicious.

“All I’m saying is, it was a play that is very rarely even used. Had they noticed it a little bit later… but they noticed it in two seconds,” Jones said.

“Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it was somebody that just knows them happened to get them the information.”

Teams in the league are allowed to have one closed practice per week. In light of last week’s game, Jones and the Riders will be taking full advantage of that.

“It’s a fan driven league. Fans paid for this place. We’ve tried to be as open as we can with the fans, and it’s unfortunate that it’s come back to haunt us.”

While Hamilton’s head coach Kent Austin dismissed the spying allegations as “absurd”, the Riders’ upcoming opponent is remaining cautious.

“We have a lot of ex-teammates on that team, and obviously some of their personnel guys have been here so, we just have to watch what we say and make sure that we’re not giving them any advantage to what we’re running,” Calgary head coach Dave Dickenson said Tuesday.

Rider fans are indeed everywhere, and there is a large number of them in Calgary, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by Dickenson.

“We do know there is a big Roughrider contingent so we’re just trying to be a little careful on what we do,” he said.

“You just try and make sure you give yourself the best chance to win.”

The 1-2 Riders face the 2-1 Stampeders in Calgary on Saturday.