NLL Insider

With a week off to get ready for the third all-star appearance of his career, 2007 transition player of the year Steve Toll (who talks about as fast as he runs) discusses Rochester’s rough start, the looming trade deadline, and Jim Moss’s ugly feet.

You guys have had a pretty up-and-down start to the season, haven’t been able to get a lot of momentum going. Is a week off something you could use right now or would you rather be back out there playing after a big win over Chicago?
I think overall we’d like to be out there playing, but a week off is always good. We have a few injured bodies, Regy Thorpe and a couple other guys have a few bumps and bruises so it’s always good to get a week off here and there and stay with the family for a weekend because we’re travelling for 16 weeks straight. I think it’s just a process of starting out a little slow and having, you know, kind of a championship hangover right now. We just have to work our way through it and become a team and we’ll be fine.

The Knighthawks are kind of known for being a slow-start team, but are you at all worried about or disappointed in the start you’ve gotten off to?
Oh definitely, I think I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. Anytime you lose four of your first eight games when you only lost two all last year I think it’s something to be worried about for sure. But we’re not into panic mode, we’ve got pretty much a veteran team and we’re not going to panic, that’s for sure, not going to do something stupid. We’re just going to take it one day at a time and battle back. I think we all just need to get on the same page. I think early in the year we had a couple guys with their own little game plan and it just wasn’t working. Now everyone seems to be on the same page and when we’re on the same page we’re a pretty good club.

A lot of people have been quick to call it the curse of Mike Accursi. People like puns. Do you feel like there’s a spot in the offense that needs to be filled? Think we’ll see some action before the trade deadline?
I’m not sure you’re going to see any action, I mean would we like to have Mike Accursi? Sure. But is it a case of us not having enough firepower? I don’t think so. We have the best player in the game by far right now in John Grant, any team he’s on he fills a big void. We have a lot of great players besides him, like Williams and the Evies, and our rookies are coming along nicely, Lyons and Macleod. They’re going to be great players and I think we have enough offense to make up for that.

I just think it’s a problem where the offense is playing well but the defense isn’t playing well, or the defense is playing well and maybe Patty O’Toole doesn’t have his best game. We just haven’t really played 60 minutes of lacrosse yet and we’re still 4-4. Like I said, we’re not going to panic. Do we miss Accursi? Sure. He’s a great team guy, a great friend, great on the floor and he played well in big games, anytime you lose a player of that stature…that’s just business. We’re not going to make a trade back for him. We’re just going to have to deal with it. That’s what we’re going to do.

You’ve already talked a little about rookies Matt Lyons and Mat Macleod, but could you tell me a little more about what you think they’ll end up contributing to this team?
It’s funny being an older guy and being around them, Macleod and Andrew Potter are both 19 years old so it’s kind of funny having them on the road when they’re not able to drink. Lyons brings a lot, he’s got a lot of skills. He’s definitely the most skilled out of the three. The kid can shoot, he can cut the middle, he knows the game of lacrosse whereas Macleod and Potter they’re also really good players, but Potter reminds me of a Kenny Millin-type player, pick and roll, knows his role, and Macleod reminds me of a Chapman on offense. Works really hard and never stops moving.

With the trouble the ownership is having and all of that talk, is it a distraction to the team?
Maybe to the guys in Rochester, but us guys in Canada it doesn’t really bother us. Like our coach always says: they’ve gotta take care of it, and if they can’t take care of it and they gotta get new owners then they gotta get new owners. To us it’s not a big deal. [General Manager] Jody Gage just wants us to concentrate on lacrosse and he’ll worry about what’s going on with our ownership. We’re still getting great fans, our fan support is unbelievable. We’ll just go about our business. If they move us, they move us. It’s part of the business and that’s what happens.

What’s the mentality of the team right now? Are you still confident that by the end of the season you’ll be one of the top teams in the league?
I think we’re pretty confident. We’re not over-confident, that’s for sure. Are we a little bit nervous? I’d say we’re a little nervous just about who we still have left to play and what we think is going to get us in the playoffs. We feel we definitely have the club to get us in the playoffs and if we’re a third- or fourth-place team I don’t think any of the teams that are one or two will want to play us in the first round just because of what we’ve done in the past.

Jim Moss writes a blog for us once in a while, and in one of them he mentioned that you run like you have ‘a pickle up your wazoo.’
Ha! I walk the same way.

Is there anything you’d like to tell the world about Jim Moss?
Jim Moss…what could I point out about Jim Moss. Most of the stuff I could point out I’d get in a lot of trouble for. It’s hard because I can’t even cut up his bad facial hair because I don’t have any. Well I guess I could tell you about his bad sideburns, he usually ends up growing them all the way into his mouth, tries to set trends like that that no one follows. He’s not the smoothest runner either, now that I think about it. He’s got ugly feet!

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