It’s been a regular occurrence of lately, but the Portland Timbers have done it again. Fighting back against a loss, the boys on the pitch scored another late goal to pick up a point in Colorado. Renowned for their second-half performances at the moment, Gaston Fernandez came off the bench to grab a point after his 76^th minute equalizer cancelled out a Rapids lead.

With just a point between Portland & Vancouver at the moment, it’s no surprise to see this point on the road being heralded. The Rapids looked to be on the way to their first win since the summer, when they got a victory back in July. If you wanted to find a negative for Portland, it’s that the Rapids had lost seven on the spin. However, any point on the road is a good one and the Rapids certainly never played like fodder. Following the Whitecaps loss to Dallas on Saturday, it was a chance for the Timbers to close the gap and close it they did.

The Rapids started the better, and had the most of the early play, including a long-range blast from Nick LaBrocca which required vintage Ricketts to keep the score at 0-0. An offside goal came for the Timbers, with Fanendo Adi judged to have been offside from Liam Ridgewells chance.

The deadlock was finally broken when Diego Valeri, the star man for the Timbers, tore in behind the Rapids defense after a lovely Adi pass. He blasted the ball at the rookie Rapids keeper, but John Berner couldn’t do enough to stop it flying in. with a half-time lead, it only took until the 47^th minute for the Rapids to restore the lead. Ridgewell was penalized for a handball in the box, despite it not even being a handball in the first place. Dillon Powers put the spot kick away, and took grip of the game.

Another great save from Ricketts was needed from Brown in a one-on-one, but resistance was further broken when Marc Burch swung in a beautiful cross straight onto the head of Brown, who made no mistake this time. Fernandez then equalized after a lovely pass through from Max Urruti, and it took a brilliant save from Berner in stoppage-time to avoid the Rapids losing their grip on a point.

All in all, it was a good performance from the Timbers but as they had off to play Honduran outfit Olimpia in the Champions League they will want to back on winning terms by the time the Whitecaps arrive in Oregon next weekend.