SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

Rapids Head Coach Gary Smith

On the game…
“Honestly, I thought the performance tonight overall was one of a group of players that looked inspired and looked like they had a little point to prove after getting beat last weekend in New York. I thought New England came out strong and made it a competitive game and to all credit to them at 2-0 they changed formations and thought there may be some mileage still in the game. That third game really gave us the buffer and was probably the final nail for them. For our guys it was an extremely good performance for them and a very-very good result.”
On the team’s defense and three straight shutout wins at home…
“I thought Anthony (Wallace) again took another step forward. He looks more and more settled in that left back spot. Of course with Marvell coming back into the group there was a little change and he is coming back from injury, but he is such a good athlete he quickly gets to grip the pace of the game. And with Kosuke (Kimura) and Drew (Moor) you can pencil in good performances from them week in and week out and that always settles the players around them. I have to give credit to Jeff (Larentowicz) and Pablo (Mastroeni) as well. There was a real determination about their play tonight.”
“I think when you are on the front foot and creating opportunities and keeping the ball as well as we did, it always keeps you away that much more from the goal you are defending. In many ways with all the positive play there has been has helped us keep those clean sheets.”

Rapids MID Brain Mullan
On playing in his first game for the Rapids (as a Colorado native)…
“It was one of the best experiences of my life. I have been waiting for this day for 10 years. It is finally here and it was very nerve-racking.”

Rapids FWD Conor Casey
On tying Paul Bravo’s Rapids all-time scoring lead with 39 goals…
“It is big honor. There have been a lot of great forwards that have played here like (Paul) Bravo, (John) Spencer and (Jeff) Cunningham. This is my fourth season here and to know that I have more seasons here to build on that makes it exciting for me and especially being here from Denver.”   
On the team’s form of late at home with three straight 3-0 wins…
“When you start off games like we have with the last three home games scoring quickly, goals seem to come easier and it is definitely something you want to recreate every time you come out and play. It feels good to be scoring goals and to be doing it at home because we hadn’t been earlier in the season, so it is good to be doing this at this time of the year.”

New England Head Coach Steve Nicol
On overall of first half…
“We just cannot keep making basic errors, then you lose goals. Two of the goals were avoidable. If we had cleared the first one correctly and then followed the run on the second goal, it was basic stuff. We just gave up.”
On giving up a goal early on the road…
“It’s not clever. This is a hard enough place to come anyways, without giving them goals but it is basic stuff. It is not rocket science why we have lost tonight. We made too many basic errors, which just encourages the opposition to come after us.”
On play in the second half…
“The attitude was good in the second half. Obviously we were chasing the game and gave up one with about seven minutes to go. I do not have huge complaints about the second half, but for the first half I did. We can’t come out and produce what we did in the first forty-five and expect to have any chance at winning games. Matt Reis had a couple of saves; one off of Conor Casey’s head was world class. He was a positive tonight.”
On game in Dallas…
“We will either sink or swim, and we better swim.”

New England MID Pat Phelan
Overall on game…
“You are not going to win games when you put yourself in a hole like that, that early in the game. It was the same thing that happened against Chivas USA and we could not come back. They were a little better team, the altitude, long trip, it’s been a tough year. It is just not good enough all the way around. We gave them a little too much respect tonight. They had too much time on the ball. Our game plan was to not go crazy chasing the ball, but at times when we needed to press we did not press. We did not close down the ball properly and it burned us. Even though this game was disheartening and it tough to lose like this, there were some positives in the second half. I think if a couple things went our way we could have pulled one back. We had some spells of good attacking soccer and I think it was the same story as it has been all year long. If we do that in the first half, we will be in a much easier position to make a run for the game. We will take that with us but we still have a lot of stuff, not just the tactical and technical stuff, it’s just looking inside you and saying that you are not going to let this happen. It is heart or lack of it right now. We really did not look at Colorado and said that they have this guy or that guy; I think that we gave them two goals in the first half. We were not following runners or clearing the ball properly and then boom boom it is two to nothing. It has been the same all year long, teams come at us but we have let them do that. We have no played with enough heart and passion and it shows.”

New England FWD Ilija Stolica
Overall on game…
“We made some simple mistakes that lead to goals. The first half was really terrible. In the second half we changed a little bit and started playing. We put more effort but it did not bring us a positive result. We you take a goal in the first five to ten minutes, then it is really difficult to come back. Especially on the road, we have to put more effort and press more. When you start to press, you wait for their mistakes and counter. It is really hard when they have an advantage in the beginning.”
Moving forward….
“We have to regroup. There is no other way. We have to face this game and think about it only tonight and forget about it tomorrow. We have to learn from our mistakes. In Los Angeles and Chivas we had the same mistakes, tonight was the same. But in the second half we put some effort into it and tried to control the ball and the game. The quality was much better. But we have to repeat what we did in the second half, the positive sides, and try to play the same way in Dallas.”