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Sandy • The rescuing of a home point wasn't the main talking point for Aaron Maund Saturday night. It was everything that led up to Real Salt Lake's game-tying penalty kick in the 79th minute that bothered the RSL center back.
"To be honest with you, it's not enough, and we expect more from ourselves," Maund said. "At home, we expect three points, so we're walking away thinking that we left a little bit on the table."
Since returning from the two-week Copa America Centenario break a month ago, RSL has left points on the table on more than one occasion. June and July featured eight league matches in total, six of which came at Rio Tinto Stadium. But so far, RSL has one win and three draws in its last four home outings.
Still unbeaten at home, yes, but the schedule shaped up splendidly for RSL (8-5-5, 29 points) to add to its first-half tally when it managed 14 road points in its first 13 regular-season matches. In the last month, RSL has six points from five overall league matches.
"I don't think we can get too caught up in the points [conversation]," RSL coach Jeff Cassar said. "We really need to just concentrate on the performance and just getting better in some areas. We've shown that we can go get three points on the road already a few times this year."
RSL has flashed an ability to dominate matches in spurts during this homestead. Against the D.C. United and against the Seattle Sounders in the eventual U.S. Open Cup loss, RSL had a plethora of chances to bury the opposition, but couldn't. What has often coincided with those flashes are severe lulls in play that have continually popped up in first halves: Against the Wilmington Hammerheads in U.S. Open Cup, against the New York Red Bulls and again Saturday night against Montreal.
Fluidity has been fleeting at times.
"We put ourselves in a great situation with those games at home and we haven't capitalized on those games at home, and now you got one eye looking at the standings of the other teams catching up on points and you wonder where those games went," said RSL midfielder Luke Mulholland.
Cassar was asked after the latest draw if a road match could serve the team well after taking just one trip in the last four weeks — a 2-0 loss to league-leading FC Dallas that mainly featured second-team players. That's what RSL faces this week: A road trip to Vancouver to face the Whitecaps coming off a disappointing 2-2 home draw against the Colorado Rapids.
"Maybe it does," Cassar said. "I know we are going to put out a very strong team against them and I'm excited to see this team play."
Two more home matches await in July before the club's schedule starts to even itself out and the dog days of summer set in. If RSL is to keep its spot near the top of the Western Conference, finding a way to capture three points at home against the New England Revolution and San Jose Earthquakes could go a long way to forgetting the dropped points in June and July.
"Summer months in the MLS is what it's all about," Maund said.
Twitter: @chriskamrani —
RSL at Vancouver
Wednesday, 8:30 p.m.
TV » KMYU