Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
The Ticats on field success resulted in a unique situation for the team during yesterday’s CFL Canadian Draft. They had the luxury of picking late, letting the chips fall where they may and they were able to parlay that into a savvy and successful draft.
The Ticats moved their way up and down in the draft, eventually turning the three picks they had going into the day into four players by the end. Hamilton kicked things off by trading back with Edmonton from the 12th spot for the 19th and 27th overall picks.
With the 19th overall pick the Ticats drafted bruising fullback Samuel Fournier from Laval. Used primarily as a lead blocker, Fournier also was a short yardage back and his main impact will most likely be seen on special teams as a rookie.
“He’s an excellent special teams player, he’ll hit you on special teams so he might excite our fans a little bit when they see him go down on cover teams,” said General Manager Bob O’Billovich. “He’s like a missile going down there.”
Complacency has never been Obie’s style on draft day and predictably, Hamilton made another trade before picking their second player of the day. The Ticats traded their 28th pick overall and the rights to a player from their negotiation list, quarterback Alex Brink, to Winnipeg in exchange for the 22nd overall pick.
They then used that pick on University of Manitoba standout, defensive tackle Eddie Steele, whose father Leroy was also drafted by the Tiger-cats in the seventh round of the 1984 CFL draft.
“We had ranked him pretty high from the evaluation camp and what he did with the Manitoba Bisons so we thought we got a pretty good young defensive lineman there,” said O’Billovich.
With the 27th overall pick the Tiger-cats selected DB Chris Rwabukamba from Duke University. Rwabukamba still has a year of eligibility left in the NCAA and could turn into a good Canadian talent at the corner position, providing the team with some flexibility with their Canadian player ratio.
Finally with their last pick of the day, Hamilton drafted kicker/punter Justin Palardy from St. Mary’s University, creating the possibility of an all Canadian special teams tandem to look at going into training camp.
“We had identified three kicker/punter types that we thought could come in and help us, so we were happy he was there when we felt it was time for us to do that,” said O’Billovich.
