Another not-so-grand finale for RSL

Real Salt Lake began its 2007 campaign by giving up a late goal that cost the third-year MLS franchise two valuable points.

Three months later, those troubles continue.

Conceding late goals at home has plagued RSL all year, and it gave up another costly one Saturday evening inside Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Tied 1-1 with Toronto FC late in the second half, Salt Lake conceded a penalty kick in the 77th minute. Collin Samuel calmly converted it, and the expansion team from Canada emerged with a 2-1 win in front of 20,751 fans.

The moment left RSL players shaking their heads.

"It's something that we've stressed before at the beginning of the season," goalkeeper Nick Rimando said of the killer goals RSL has been conceding. "And now we're (14) games in, and it's still happening.

"And we can't do that," he added. "You can see, even the bad teams in the league take advantage of those chances. And it happened tonight."

RSL's late-goal woes in 2007 started on Day 1.

Against Dallas at home, RSL led 2-1 and appeared to be on the verge of a big season-opening win. Instead, Carlos Ruiz equalized for Dallas in the 94th minute, taking two important points away from Salt Lake.

This time, RSL gave away one point, instead of two.

With 13 minutes to go, referee Jair Marrufo ruled that Jean-Martial Kipre hauled down Samuel inside the 18-yard box.

Samuel smashed home the ensuing penalty kick, and Real was left with nothing.

Other than to see its late-goal problems continue.

Holding a 2-0 lead a week-and-a-half ago, RSL gave up a late goal against D.C. United. On that occasion, Salt Lake escaped with three points.

For his part, coach Jason Kreis pointed out that — while it's easy to bemoan the defensive mistakes — RSL's poor finishing should be blamed, too.

"We can come into these press conferences at the end of the game where a defender makes a mistake — it's easy to point the finger at them," he said. "But we'll need to point the finger at the guys that don't take their chances as well, because those are clear-cut chances."

Going forward, what can Salt Lake do to eliminate — or at least minimize — the costly late errors?

"It's tough," said Rimando. "You can't teach that. It's something you've got to do on your own. You've got to concentrate for the full 90 minutes. You can't take time off. You've got to stay in the game."

Added defender Jack Stewart: "Bad habits, they've got to stop."

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