especially with the Rapids facing nine of their final 14 games on the road, beginning with Saturday's visit to FC Dallas.
"We need to take the same attitude on the road," said Cooke. "Sometimes we can be a bit negative and defensive-minded on the road. We have a team full of good attacking players, and we need to take advantage of that. Now at home we are attacking more and defending less and we need to take that style with us on the road."
The game-winner was the fifth of the season for Niko Hernandez, now tied for the team lead with Jovan Kirovski.
"It was a beautiful goal. It is the personal favorite of all the goals I have scored (with the Rapids) just because of how the play was developed and how the ball was moved by the whole team and the way I finished it and the importance of the rival and three points," Hernandez said. "Usually a forward would look for the far post to score that goal, but the way the play developed I had it right there and I knew I had to hit it right away. So I picked out the near post and tried to position it as far away from the goalkeeper. Luckily enough it went to a place where the goalie couldn't keep it out of the net."
And then, there were the heroics of Joe Cannon at the other end to ensure Colorado would come away with full value. "That's why, for me, Joe is the best goalkeeper in the league. He stepped up and made the saves when he needed to," Clavijo said. "For me it was not a surprise. It is expected from him all of the time. That's why we made a commitment as a team to keep him for good."
Rookie Daniel Wasson made his first MLS start. "It was just awesome. I had a lot of friends from Colorado Springs come up and my brother from Tulsa drove all the way here. I got a lot of good advice from the older players just to play simple in the beginning, just so I can get all the nerves out and make easy passes from the start to get myself into the game," he said. "I thought I did that pretty well. I made a couple of turnovers early but I felt overall I did really well. Kyle (Beckerman) was a steady influence in there and Pablo (Mastroeni) was always talking to me. Clint (Mathis) was also helping me out. A lot of veterans put me under their wing."
