Tonight was a good test for us as a defence and a team. We just had to limit Banks from taking it to the house. Our special teams, I want to give some credit to those guys because I don’t think Banks wanted to come in on offence after taking a few hits.

On defence, Collaros comes into the game and gives his receivers a chance and he did that a couple times tonight and scored a couple of touchdowns. We’ll learn from it and next time we play them, we’ll have a better game plan.

We’re feeling good having seven wins now and winning all our games at home. We know we can’t feel too good because you get complacent when you do. We’re still focusing on one game at a time until that Grey Cup game at the end of the year.

Hamilton was definitely a challenge, especially defensively. Collaros is a good quarterback and he’s surrounded by good talent. We were tested a little tonight and the guys bought in but they didn’t break and ultimately we won the game. As long as we’ve got more points at the end of the game than them, we’ve done our job.

We, as a defence, are definitely ahead of where we were at the beginning of the season – we’re progressing. We have a lot of work to do yet but the guys are buying in and the guys are starting to gel and that chemistry is huge on defence. No matter how much talent you have, it’s no good if you don’t have some chemistry when you’re working with each other.

Now we have Edmonton on Labour Day. Those guys had our number last year and it’s a good challenge for our team. We’re ready to play these guys. Hamilton was a great test today and we are going to take the next step to play the Eskimos. Edmonton has some momentum now — they’ve won a few games in a row and they’re looking good but they have to come into our house now and play in front of our fans and we’re looking forward to that.

We can’t look at the big picture. You have to set short-term goals and right now our goals are to focus on one game at a time, next opponent and that’s what we have to do from hereon out.

Deron Mayo, #42