Courtesy Winnipeg Sun:

So they proved me wrong.

As regular followers of this space know, I didn’t have much faith in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers quenching their Grey Cup thirst this season. Let’s face it, their 3-4 record down the stretch raised more questions than a politician in opposition.

It seemed other CFL teams had figured out the Winnipeg offence and raised their play to another level, while the Bomber offence had plateaued. And there were those gawd-awful special teams.

I wondered if the Bombers had enough players who wanted it badly enough, too, who were willing to pay the price to win in cold weather, or on the road — especially in Toronto, where Winnipeg teams go to die.

We got our answer here Sunday, as the Bombers manhandled the Argos, 19-9, and now the 2007 season has to be considered a major step forward for this franchise.

Head coach Doug Berry, who should probably be a finalist for CFL Coach of the Year, and his offensive staff made the vaunted Toronto defence look as ordinary as white bread.

Defensive co-ordinator Greg Marshall spread some butter on his reputation with a scheme that licked the Argos’ ground game and dared Michael Bishop to throw deep, with miserable results.

And special teams coach Cory McDiarmid is out of the soup, probably saving his job the last few weeks.

So what now — do we expect the Bombers to simply mail in their Grey Cup RSVPs because quarterback Kevin Glenn’s left arm folded at the worst possible time?

That might be the approach of some, believing the Bombers don’t stand a chance with untested Ryan Dinwiddie at the helm.

But it shouldn’t, and probably won’t, be the approach of anybody in the Bomber locker-room.

“Sh–, man, it’s football,” the human tank, D-lineman Jerome Haywood, said of losing Glenn. “Obviously it hurts, and we’d love to have him. But we don’t. So we can’t cry over spilled milk. We’ve got to make the best of our opportunity. And I know that we will.”

The odds are against them, of course — and the Bombers will lap that up. These guys obviously prefer the underdog role, and if some member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders happens to pull a Kevin Eiben and blurt out something stupid, they’ll latch on to it like a divorce lawyer onto a bitter spouse.

I don’t see this team being satisfied just getting to this point — and not just because of the Milt Stegall angle.

As hungry as Stegall is for the Cup, there are some 40 more players in the buffet line behind him, waiting to dig in for the first time. A man with his thumb and forefinger cut off could count the Grey Cup winners on this team with one hand — and still have a finger left over.

So don’t expect the Bombers to hand this one to the Riders on a silver platter, any more than Calgary handed the ‘01 championship to the heavily favoured Bombers.

“If we lose this coming Sunday it means nothing,” kicker Troy Westwood said, and he should know, having been to three Grey Cups and coming away empty.

And then there’s the head coach, who got mighty used to the taste of success when he was in Montreal.

Berry treated Sunday’s East Final victory as just another step to where he planned to take this team when he took over two years ago.

“I’m kind of, more or less, used to going to it,” Berry said. “So it’s nice to have these guys be able to play well enough to get us there. It’s no big surprise to me. I felt very confident in our team.”

Now that he’s this close, I doubt Berry will allow the Bombers to do anything short of pulling out all the stops.

So count the Bombers out, if you want.

I won’t be.

I’ve learned my lesson.