The Saskatchewan Roughriders return to their home field on Friday night to host the Ottawa Redblacks at Mosaic Stadium.

The Riders are back in Saskatchewan after securing a pair of wins over Ottawa and Toronto on a two-week road trip to Ontario.

While they swept the road trip, head coach Chris Jones said that they need to stay focused on improving.

“We won the ball games, but we didn’t play very good football,” he said.  “I told them, ‘Don’t read your press clippings,’ make sure that we start playing better football like we were about a month ago.  We’ve got to get back to playing three phase football.”

Saskatchewan had to come from behind in both games after slow starts, which is something that they will be looking to remedy this week when they host the Redblacks, who the Riders beat 18-17 in Week 15.

“We’ve just got to come out and be ready to play,” said Jones.  “We don’t do anything different any game, but we’ve just got to make sure that we’re prepared physically, mentally and get off on the right foot.”

Heading into Friday’s game, the Riders have a chance to lock up their first playoff spot in two years with a win and a B.C. Lions loss in Winnipeg on Saturday.

The prospect of securing a playoff spot and continuing their winning streak has the Riders feeling good heading into the meeting with Ottawa.

“We have three of the last four games at home and that’s awesome at this time of year,” said quarterback Kevin Glenn.  “You want to be playing good football and playing it home with the 13th man is awesome.  The atmosphere is very, very alive on the field and in the locker room.”

The Riders scored 18 unanswered points in the win over Ottawa two weeks ago and found themselves down 16-3 during the second quarter of last Saturday’s win over Toronto.

Glenn said that those wins in that fashion is big for the team heading into the home stretch of the season.

“We’re showing a complete team, whether one guy isn’t doing well or out, another guy steps up,” said Glenn.  “That whole trip of us being out there together built some good camaraderie within the team and it displayed out on the field.”

Glenn was pulled from last week’s win over Toronto after struggling out of the gate.  Brandon Bridge came on in relief and led the Riders to the 27-24 victory over the Argonauts.

After struggling over the past few games, Glenn said he’s looking to get back to his early season form.

“We’re playing good right now, but we can get better,” he said.  “No one is ever perfect, so the big thing is for us to keep striving to be perfect, so we can try to get as much out of it as we can.”

The Redblacks come into Friday’s game after going into Vancouver and topping the Lions, 30-25, last week.

The Riders and Redblacks kick-off from Mosaic Stadium at 8 p.m. Friday night.