By Mitchell Blair
For Riderville.com
Many people from Saskatchewan are on their way to Vancouver for the 99th Grey Cup. While many are there to partake in the activities surrounding the game and the game itself between the hometown B.C Lions and Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sunday, Riders general manager Brendan Taman is there for a different reason.
Taman is in Vancouver where he hopes to talk to several people that the football club is interested in hiring as the team’s head coach. Taman says the search itself has already started, but they are just in the preliminary stages.
“I’ve already gotten a couple of interviews done,” Taman said. “I’ll head out to Vancouver and talk to some people there. There is still a lot of work to do.”
While names like Dave Dickenson, Corey Chamblin and current Rider assistants like Richie Hall and Craig Dickenson have been mentioned as possible replacements, the name of Kent Austin continues to float out there. Taman admits it would be stupid not to give the man who coached the team to the 2007 Grey Cup a call.
“I would like to talk to Kent,” Taman said. “I’d be foolish not to talk to him. I don’t know if there is any interest there, but I do want to talk to him and see what type of reaction I get. Once I have done that, I will be able to gauge what, if any interest he has and move from there. His name is a significant one and I’d be foolish if I didn’t ask him if he wants to come back.”
While Taman looks to talk to people about the job, he feels he won’t be interviewing anyone in Vancouver because they are either involved in Sunday’s Grey Cup or they are still getting over the fact that they were knocked out in last weekend’s conference finals.
“I’m not big on interviewing people at the Grey Cup because of everything that goes on around it,” Taman said. “If we have to do a couple because of timing than I will, but I don’t plan on sitting in a room talking to this person or that person. When you lose, its tough and you need to get your batteries re-charged so I give that person a few days before I make a phone call.”
While Taman won’t give names or specify if he wants an offensive or defensive mind as head coach, he does concede that the person who gets the job will have to have someone with him that has a offensive flair.
“We’ve been pretty consistent in saying our offence is something that has to be addressed.” Taman stated. “Most of our candidates so far have more of a defensive style to them so it will be a key for them to be surrounded by a good offensive staff.”
Taman also wants to make it clear that there is no timeline for hiring a new person. He believes that all due diligence must be done in talking to the right person to make sure he will be the right fit and go from there. He understands the need to get a person in as quickly as possible so that person can be involved in the re-build that is needed to get this team back in the playoffs, but he adds the decision can’t be rushed thus there is no guarantee that Rider fans will have a new coach to talk about during Christmas dinner.
