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WINNIPEG — It was way back in training camp, nearly six months ago, that Brandon Alexander looked around at his Winnipeg Blue Bombers teammates and saw the future.

At least, the potential future.

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“Every single year you come in and look at the guys around you in pre-season,” Alexander was telling me the other day. “And you see, ‘OK, this is what we can get accomplished. We’re going to ride this wave until the wheels fall off.’ We looked at each other and we saw that we can do it.

“We’re not going to talk about it during the season because it’s game by game. But right before the season starts, it’s like, ‘This is what we’re here for.’”

By “this,” Alexander meant a run to the Grey Cup.

The Bombers had the horses, both in returning players, leaders like Matt Nichols and Andrew Harris on offence, Adam Bighill on defence, veterans in the trenches, and in new faces, led by the incomparable Willie Jefferson.

Fast-forward to the present, their roster somewhat altered by circumstance, their resolve hardened by 21 weeks of slogging, and the Bombers are one win away from playing for all the marbles.