Courtesy Edmonton Journal:

Not one, but two coaching calls helped get the Edmonton Eskimos off on the right foot on Thursday.

They came at the expense of Alexis Serna’s right foot.

Serna’s 47-yard field-goal attempt, on the last play of the game, went wide left and the Eskimos managed to elude the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers 19-17 in their Canadian Football League season opener.

Esks head coach Richie Hall iced Serna with a timeout just prior to the Winnipeg kicker actually punching it through the uprights for what would have been the tying points.

The timeout was allowed and Serna missed the second chance.

Earlier, Esks offensive line coach Jeff Bleamer had rallied the troops just before the half, seconds before the offence took the field for their first touchdown of the night to grab a9-2 lead at the break.

“Obviously, Richie icing the kicker was huge,” said Esks quarterback Ricky Ray, who finished 29 of 41 in passing for 318 yards, one touchdown and an interception. “The first one went through and would have been a tie game. A great call.

“But Jeff, he was trying to get us to focus in and realize that our defence was playing good and offensively we just had to take it one play at a time and execute better than we were.”

Both moves helped turn the tide in what was otherwise a dull offensive display by both sides.

The stubborn visitors nearly added insult to Jesse Lumsden’s injury as the running back left in the last minute of the first quarter with a shoulder injury. It was painful, not only for Lumsden, but the 30,650 fans in the stands who endured a downpour in the opening quarter and a lacklustre offensive effort.

It was a scoreless opening quarter before the teams traded safety touches in the second.

Ray finally got the Esks offence going on a three-play, 31-second drive that culminated with a 19-yard TD pass to Andrew Nowacki with 24 seconds left in the opening half. It came right after Bleamer called the troops together on the sidelines.

“He got us all together to steer the ship, to get everybody back to where we needed to be–make sure that nobody was losing hope at all and realizing we had plays to make. He did a good job and everybody responded,” said Esks receiver Kamau Peterson.

Winnipeg tied it 8:02 into the third quarter, but it came on special teams on a 20-yard scamper by Shawn Gallant, who scooped up a Tristan Jackson fumble on a punt return. Jackson was crushed by Joe Lobendahn on the play that tied it 9-9.

Jackson atoned with a 56-yard return to the Winnipeg 38 on the ensuing kickoff. Four plays later, Ray capped a four-play, 38-yard drive with a one-yard TD run. Edmonton upped the advantage to 19-9 at 7:20 of the fourth on a 19-yard Noel Prefontaine field goal.

The Bombers didn’t quit, scoring on the very next drive on a 16-yard run by Fred Reid, which was set up by a 54-yard catch and run play from Stefan LeFors to Terrence Edwards.

They had the chance to tie it with the final kick, but an illegal procedure call on Brendon Labatte pushed the Bombers back five yards to make the attempt that much tougher– that, and the late timeout that eventually gave Esks head coach Richie Hall a win in his first outing.

“One of the things we try and do in practice is we try to be a situation team, so we want to prepare ourselves for any situations that might occur. So that when it does happen we’re not caught off guard,” Hall said of making the call.

“We’ve practised that a couple of times before against our own selves. It was something that we were very much aware of and it worked for us today.”

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