“The band, Elwood, the band!”
When John Belushi’s character Jake Blues made this comment in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers, he had just seen a vision that his former band should be reunited.
On Tuesday, the Toronto Argonauts trio of specialists convened on the field together for the first time since the 2024 Grey Cup victory over Winnipeg.
John Haggerty has been impressive throughout training camp, being held at the University of Guelph. Last year was an exceptionally good one for the native of Sydney, Australia. He set a team record with a 50.3-yard season average, adding another mark with a 58.9-yard game in Calgary, while increasing his career average to a team record 48.9 yards per kick. He also set a Grey Cup record with a 54.8-yard average in that game.
In the off-season leading up to 2024 he spent time back in Australia working with former NFL punter Sav Rocca, spending much of his time trying to improve his punting into the wind.
It worked.
This off-season he reunited with Rocca and another former Aussie NFL punter.
“Honesty it was exactly the same,” he told Argonauts.ca. “I trained with Sav, I trained with Darren Bennett in the States, just working on hang time and consistency. I came into camp feeling great; I feel smooth, I feel fast, I feel great.”
How can Haggerty improve on a nearly perfect season, from both a personal and team perspective?
“Well, obviously we’re going to win again, which would be nice,” he said with a smile. “Personally, I’m not too worried about that as long as I help our team win and flip the field when I need to, that’s all I’m worried about.”
Placekicker Lirim Hajrullahu was on the field for the first time on Tuesday. He also is coming off a stellar season, one where he tied Lance Chomyc’s Argo record of 55 field goals, set a club record with an eight-field goal outing against Montreal, and joined Chomyc as just the second Argo player to have 200 points in a season.
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He was also stellar in the post season, perfect on 10 field goals and 14 converts. On one of those post-season attempts, a 35-yard field goal coming late in the first half of the Grey Cup, Hajrullahu seriously injured his ankle. He finished the game through the pain, connecting on two field goals and four conversions despite the injury.
There was no break, but there was ligament damage, which kept the kicker off the field with the Argos until Tuesday.
“My injury from the Grey Cup took a little bit longer than expected,” he admitted to Argonauts.ca. “I’m a guy that will take two weeks off after Grey Cup and then slowly get back into the gym and back into kicking once a week. It was a little bit tough the first few months; I’d go kick and the ankle would hurt a lot.
“I wasn’t able to push off as much, I wasn’t able to get stronger sooner than later, but being on the injured list the first few weeks (of training camp) really helped me regain that strength and regain that elasticity in my muscles in my ankle. If felt really good to be out there again.”
The Western grad was solid in his camp debut, hitting virtually every kick, including a 57-yard bomb, something that was good for him mentally.
“It was important,” he said of his longest kick. “But it was more about getting in tune with snap, hold, kick. I don’t think the distance matters as much, it’s more the tempo, the operation. We do snap, hold, kick all the time, but it’s when you have the o-linemen and the d-linemen with someone rushing you making it as live as possible, that’s what makes it more realistic, and that was very important to me.”
On a field goal or convert attempt Hajrullahu does the kicking, Haggerty is the holder, and Adam Guillemette does the long snapping.
You may not know Guillemette’s name, and that’s probably a good thing. Not that he’s a bad guy, but long snappers are usually only talked about when they make a mistake, a word that is never used when talking about the Cambridge native.
He was back on the field Tuesday after missing the last few days, placed on the suspended list for personal reasons.
“Training camp is obviously the time to get back into the groove of things,” said the product of Holy Cross. “Our biggest things as specialists are timing and consistency. You learn to love getting back into the motion of it and working on the little things.”
Most players try to get stronger and faster over an off-season, but last year the timing of Guillemette’s snaps on both punts and field goals was seemingly perfect. Did he try to improve the velocity of his snaps over the winter?
“I think in snapping there’s a give and take,” he explained. “For field goals that’s definitely not the most important thing, you’re trying to think more about placement, laces, making everything smooth, that’s the most important thing. On punts, if you’re sacrificing other parts of your game just trying to rip the ball and make it faster, but you’re sacrificing consistency, accuracy, spin and everything like that, then probably not. (Speed) is an important factor, but it’s not the most important one.”
With that trio, with the CFL’s Most Outstanding Special Teams Player Janarion Grant adding a giant cherry on an already sweet sundae, the Argos special teams should once again be, well, special.
ARGO NOTES: The special teams band didn’t remain totally intact. Jeremy Edwards, an Australian entering his second season, was released. The Argos also announced the signing of quarterback Jarret Doege, formerly of the Edmonton Elks…The Argos play Hamilton in their final pre-season game Friday night in Guelph. Tickets are available at Argonauts.ca.