FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- It's tough to find a silver lining after your team loses its fourth game in five contests, but San Jose Earthquakes head coach Frank Yallop pointed to his side's second half effort in its 2-0 loss to New England on Saturday night.
"At least we didn't roll over and die at the end," Yallop said. "That was important. I said to everyone at halftime that it's about character. We're not going to win every game. We don't have a full squad. Nick Garcia being out was a challenge for us."
If the game was a challenge without Garcia and against the defending Eastern Conference champions, that challenge grew inside the first six minutes after the Quakes shoddily defended a quick free kick and Kheli Dube tapped home at the far post.
"We didn't do ourselves any favors by coming out so flat," Quakes goalkeeper Joe Cannon said. "One of the problems with this team is that we're a little bit too reactionary with our actions. We wait for something to happen before we do something about it."
But there were no positive actions to come for the remainder of that first half as the Quakes looked disjointed and failed to grab hold of possession in the middle of the park as New England moved the ball around with impunity.
Things turned from bad to worse after Cannon and James Riley crossed signals and Riley nodded into his own net after 23 minutes.
"I don't really know [it happened]," Cannon said. "He finished it pretty well. Give him credit. I was off my line a little bit and he put a lot of power on it. Unfortunately, he put it into our net. At that point, it was kind of the exclamation point of the half."
As the team trudged into the break, Yallop said he tried to lift the team's spirits with a pair of second-half substitutions.
"(Ryan) Johnson and (Shea) Salinas did a good job," Yallop said. "There were some bright spots from our subs, but New England was cruising at that point. They weren't too worried that we were going to get back in the game at that point."
A Ramiro Corrales blast off the crossbar in the dying minutes was the closest San Jose came to a goal or a shot on frame, but the performance improved markedly from the first half.
Yallop said his team will need to further improve in order to get points at home against Houston next week.
"That's probably the worst we've played since the LA game," Yallop said. "We're disappointed. We need to pull up our socks and be ready to go."
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