For the second time in the past four weeks, the Saskatchewan Roughriders headed out East and came back with a lopsided loss.

The Riders were roughed up 53-7 by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Tim Hortons Field on Saturday night, dropping Saskatchewan’s record to a CFL-worst 1-7 after their fourth straight loss.

The Chris Jones era in Saskatchewan has gotten off to a shaky start, but the Riders’ head coach doesn’t plan on packing it in any time soon.

“I ain’t never quit on nothing and there’s a lot of really solid kids in that locker room and so people can write whatever they want, they can say whatever they want, but I know the hearts of those guys in that room,” Jones told the media after Saturday’s loss. “We’ve got a lot of young kids and we’re going to keep grinding with them, got a great staff and we’re confident that we’re going to get this thing turned.”

The rebuild for the Riders wasn’t going to happen over night, but the team definitely didn’t expect it to be so bad to start.

“We’re not use to losing, it’s not something that we’ve ever been accustom to, so what we’ve got to do is learn from the mistakes that we made tonight and try to improve on them,” said Jones.

Quarterback Darian Durant definitely wasn’t expecting the team struggle as much as they have out of the gate.

“I don’t have the years or the patience like everyone else does, but of course there’s going to be growing pains and things that don’t go your way when you’re dealing with such a young team, but we have to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that we get and right now we’re just not doing that,” said Durant.

Missed opportunities have been the story of the season for the Riders through the first eight games. Saskatchewan has been given opportunities to stick with teams, but end up turning them into chances for the opposition instead of an advantage for them.

Hamilton scored on their first four possessions of the game to open up a 20-0 lead early in the second quarter. They finished off the half with a five-yard touchdown strike by Zach Collaros to Chad Owens that made it 27-4 at the break.

“They’re solid in all three phases, so first of all, you give them all the credit in the world,” said Jones. “We didn’t take advantage of our opportunities when they presented themselves when their quarterback threw the ball to us early and then we just got behind the eight-ball early and couldn’t rebound from it.”

Saskatchewan started the second half with a 24-yard field goal from Tyler Crapigna, his second of the game, but that was as good as things were going to get over the final 30 minutes for the Riders.

Collaros answered the Riders’ field goal with his fourth TD pass of the game just over three minutes later. He ended up finishing 23-of-30 for 381 yards and five touchdowns.

Jones said that the Ti-Cats are a completely different team with their starting pivot back in the lineup.

“They’re a good football team and Zach Collaros has come back and really helped them out,” he said.

“Zach did a real nice job moving around in the pocket, we failed to execute some pass rush games where people didn’t come around and when he moves around in the pocket, that’s when he’s dangerous and that’s how he beat us in the second half.”

The Riders were rough in all three phases as the score would suggest.

Their defence gave up over 500 yards in total offence to the Ti-Cats, while the offence turned the ball over six times.

Durant threw a career-high four interceptions in the game as he finished 18-of-28 for 235 yards before giving way to Mitchell Gale in the fourth quarter. The Riders’ backup was 3-of-5 for 13 yards and an INT.

“Certainly when you only score seven points, offensively we didn’t do the things that we need to do, so we’ve got to take a good hard look at what we’re doing offensively,” said Jones.

John Chick had a big game in his first action against his former team, posting two sacks and a forced fumble in the win for Hamilton.

The Riders will have a short week to prepare for a trip to Edmonton coming up on Friday night.

“It’s not rocket science, it’s just getting back to work, continuing to grind and get ready for a big Western game,” said Durant on the quick turnaround. “The season’s not over, everyone we need to play, we play coming up and we’ve got a chance with these Western games to switch things around.”