It’s official. Jack Price is now joint-second on the club’s all-time list for regular season assists, alongside former midfielder, Terry Cooke.
Price popped over the corner kick for Mark-Anthony Kaye’s second of the season in Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Houston Dynamo FC, marking his 34th assist in 108 appearances.
Cooke - who rose through the Manchester United youth ranks in the same team as Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Butt, and the Neville brothers - made 106 appearances for the Rapids between 2005-09. His 34th assist came in game number 101, a 2-0 home win over Real Salt Lake in 2009.
Chris Henderson sits top of the assist chart with 53 from 173 appearances, but the fact that Price has hit a mark not reached since 2009 is testament to his quality and consistency with the ball.
He is also one of only three players in club history to bag double digit assists in more than one season. Cooke did so in 2006 and 2008, and followed the feat achieved by Adrian Paz in 1997 and 1998.
Englishman Price is one of six players to ‘score’ a hat-trick of assists in a single game, something he achieved in the 6-3 home win over Montreal Impact on August 3, 2019. Others to manage this are Ross Paule (2001), Carlos Valderrama (2002), Terry Cooke (2006), Omar Cummings (2009, 2011), and Dominique Badji (2017).
Many of Price’s assists have come from set-pieces, and in particular, corner kicks. No surprise, therefore, to note that he has taken more corner kicks than any other player in Rapids’ history. To date, he has delivered 392 corners, 52 more than next best Chris Henderson.
Neither of Price’s two assists this season have led to game-winning goals, though he does sit atop that particular perch as well. The 29-year-old has 11 game-winning assists, one clear of Henderson.
He may be sitting pretty in the assists chart, but he is not the most prolific. That title rests with Paz, whose 24 assists came from only 53 appearances, at an average of 0.45 assists per game (Cooke is second with 0.32, followed by Price on 0.31).
Another player from the current crop now appearing on the club’s list of records is goalkeeper William Yarbrough. The minimum threshold of minutes played before stats are recognized, is 4,500. Yarbrough has now played 4,590 minutes and his numbers are impressive.
He leads all other Rapids goalkeepers in both goals against average and winning percentage. Yarbrough’s goals against average is 1.1 from 51 appearances, just ahead of Bouna Coundoul (1.16), Joe Cannon (1.26) and Matt Pickens (1.27).
The number 22 has a winning percentage of 0.637. Next best is Marcus Hahnemann (0.609), followed by Pickens (0.491) and Joe Cannon (0.482).
Yarbrough has tasted victory in 25 of his 51 appearances. Compare that to the great American ‘keeper, Tim Howard, who managed 29 from exactly 100 games for the Rapids.
Now, ask both Price and Yarbrough about their fine figures and both would humbly point to the team around them. Price suggests he just plops the ball in space and others do the hard work. Yarbrough would claim the players in front of him are a huge reason for his solid individual numbers.
We could also throw in Diego Rubio’s nine game-winning goals during his time in Colorado. That tally is good enough for joint-third on the all-time list, behind Paul Bravo (12) and John Spencer (10). Dominique Badji aside (he also has nine game-winning goals), the other names on the list played a decade or more ago. Same with the categories now dominated by Price and Yarbrough.
In other words, the Rapids’ upturn in recent seasons is being reflected by positive numbers, both as a collective and as individuals. Records which have stood for 10 years or more are now coming under threat, and these are records which can only be challenged with a sustained level of consistency and quality, the type we’re getting used to seeing week-in-week-out from the boys in burgundy.
