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There are those who say the Bombers O-line isn’t just playing hard, it’s playing dirty.

“I wouldn’t use that word,” Chungh said. “I would just say we’re tough football players up front. We like to come to work. Our attitude is lunch-pail, hard-hat. Whatever it takes, we’re going to get it done.”

That said, Chungh says O’Shea has talked to him about being smarter.

Sometimes the big men get a little carried away with the whole smash-mouth thing.

“We didn’t want to leave anything in the tank,” Jermarcus Hardrick said. “Six months is a long off-season. Guys just played and had nothing left. Sometime it went a little over the edge. But it happens.”

Neufeld acknowledges it was the heat of the moment that led to his late hit in frigid Regina.

“I saw two of my teammates go and keep pushing the pile and I thought I could get in there and do the same,” he said. “One of those split-second judgement calls that was the wrong decision to make.”

Six times this season, a member of the O-line has made that wrong decision.

But their coach says he’s not concerned his team is getting a reputation.

“We’re the least penalized team two years in a row,” O’Shea said. “That’s pretty damn good. I want them to play within the rules, and I want them to be tough and physical. But we’re the least penalized team in the league for a reason. Because we work damn hard at it.”

Maybe the fines are just the price this team has to pay for being itself.

“Football is a very violent sport,” linebacker Adam Bighill said. “And we have a bunch of violent men in this locker-room. And we go out every single game day to impose our will on people. We don’t preach anything dirty around here. But we do preach physical football. And that’s going to be a byproduct sometimes of what happens.”

CFL’S BAD BOYS

Most-fined teams this season:

1. Montreal, 11 (four were against DB’s for the way they celebrated an interception)

2. Hamilton, 9 (two for a pre-game altercation, one for an inappropriate gesture)

3. Winnipeg, 7 (all for illegal hits)

4. Ottawa, 6 (includes two suspensions, both to Kyries Hebert)

5. Calgary, 5 (one for verbally abusing an official, one for profanity on TV)

6. Edmonton, 4 (one was objectionable conduct)

7. B.C., 2

8. Toronto, 2 (includes a suspension to Dylan Winn)

9. Saskatchewan, 1