World Rugby has made a law amendment after George North scored a try while England were down to 13 men to help Wales to victory on Saturday.

North's try came after England's Anthony Watson was sent off and before a head injury replacement for Willi Heinz had come on.

The amendment states that play can only restart once temporary replacement players are on the field.

The change comes less than a month before the Rugby World Cup in Japan.

Wales became world number one after the 13-6 win and begin their World Cup campaign against Georgia on 23 September, while England's first match is against Tonga on 22 September.

PLACERVILLE, Calif. — Kyle Larson kicked off the Fastest Four Days in Motorsports with a thrilling sprint car victory to claim Wednesday’s King of the West by NARC Fujitsu Sprint Car Series 30-lap headliner at Placerville Speedway.

Larson also won the BCRA midget feature.

Larson started the Paul Silva Finley Farms/McDonalds-sponsored sprint car in the fourth spot in the 24-car grid and took advantage of a pair of late race cautions to set up his winning move.

The last one allowed him to negotiate his way past Shane Golobic with only a mile remaining on the quarter-mile high banks to score the popular $5,000 victory.

Pole Shuffle winner Mitchell Faccinto paced the frantic field for the first five laps, holding off the aggressive advances of Tim Kaeding, Golobic and Larson. Kaeding finally won a drag race down the front straightaway on lap six to take the point.

Golobic and Larson followed suit two laps later.  The top four cars battled closely in a high-speed game of cat and mouse through traffic as track champion Andy Forsberg also moved into contention.

Golobic, piloting the Elk Grove Ford/NoS Energy sprinter, pestered Kaeding for several laps and finally powered past the leader as the pair crossed the flagstand on lap 20. Larson mastered the cushion and moved into second with five laps left when the red came out for Blake Carrick who got upside down on the back straightaway.

That bunched up the field for the restart and Larson quickly went to work. He maneuvered under Golobic in the fourth turn with four to go and cruised to the win. It was the 2010 King of the West champion’s eighth career series win.

“That caution helped me in the end,” admitted Larson.  “It took me a little while to get through the field, but the yellow bunched them up at the right time.”

Golobic scored the runner-up spot, chased by Kaeding in the Shark Racing Engines Helix.  Forsberg settled for fourth in his A & A Stepping Stone ride, chased by 12th starter Rico Abreu.

The finish:

Kyle Larson, Shane Golobic, Tim Kaeding, Andy Forsberg, Rico Abreu, Colby Copeland, Mitchell Faccinto, Chase Johnson, Sean Becker, Dominic Scelzi, Willie Croft, Bud Kaeding, D.J. Netto, Ryan Bernal, Stephen Ingraham, Kenny Allen, Shane Hopkins, Brad Sweet, Andy Gregg, Geoff Ensign, Nathan Rolfe, Blake Carrick, Cole Macedo, Jonathan Allard.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Superior Essex, a manufacturer and supplier of communications cable, will partner with Grant Enfinger for Sunday’s NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.

Superior Essex, based in Atlanta, Ga., will adorn the hood of Enfinger’s Ford F-150 as he competes in the second race of the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Playoffs, north of the boarder.

“It’s great to have Superior Essex on board our F-150 for the road course race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park,” said Enfinger. “This is the second race of the playoffs, and a track that is always exciting for both the drivers and fans. I know Superior Essex will have a big crowd there for the race, so this should be the perfect place to kick off a new partnership for both ThorSport Racing and Superior Essex.”

“We are honored to partner with Grant Enfinger and ThorSport Racing at the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park,” said Brian Ensign, Vice President of Marketing for Superior Essex. “This partnership has been a long time coming. I’ve gotten to know Grant over the past two years, and have a great deal of respect for his racing ability, and his impact on the sport. I can draw that same parallel to the Superior Essex brand in our industry, so this is a great partnership for many reasons. As a company who is already working with NASCAR, teams, and other industry partners to generate business-to-business relationships, we thought this would be a great way to support Grant and the team, as they compete in the Playoffs, and to give our guests an experience of a lifetime.”

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Despite lingering injuries suffered in a plane crash, Dale Earnhardt Jr. confirmed Wednesday in a post on Twitter that he still plans to race at Darlington Raceway on Aug. 31.

Earnhardt previously announced he would be competing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington as part of the popular throwback weekend at the South Carolina track.

The retired NASCAR Cup Series star and NASCAR on NBC broadcaster was involved in a plane crash at Tennessee’s Elizabethton Municipal Airport on Aug. 15. Earnhardt, his wife Amy, daughter Isla, family dog and two pilots all escaped serious injury in the crash.

However, Earnhardt confirmed in a Twitter post Wednesday evening that he was still suffering from minor injuries as a result of the crash. Despite that, he said he still plans to race at Darlington.

Yes. I plan on driving still. My lower back is bruised up real bad. Lots of swelling and I just need that to go down and the pain to chill out. I been treating the area every day solely to get well to race. I have a plan B but hope not to use it. https://t.co/O1J7jZU4kR

— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) August 22, 2019

NAPLES, Maine – With a few days left before on track activity begins at Oxford Plains Speedway for the 46th annual Oxford 250 and hundreds of campers already dotting the property, Pro All Stars Series super late model teams are making final preparations for one of the biggest events on the racing calendar.

While many eyes will be on Georgia’s Bubba Pollard as he attempts to defend his Oxford 250 crown, the short track star might not enter Sunday’s race as the favorite.

Curtis Gerry, the 2017 winner, has concentrated all his efforts on competing at Oxford Plains this season, with several wins in weekly competition and a PASS North win there as well.

Championship contender Garrett Hall sits 15 points behind the three-time PASS North titlist D.J. Shaw, largely in part due to his two wins at Oxford Plains earlier this year.  After advancing from the last chance race a year ago before going on to win the 250, Pollard is still the driver many feel will be the one to beat in 2019.

“Before the race I was a nervous wreck just not knowing what to expect or how these guys race,” said Pollard, who will be driving the Harrison’s Workwear Ford No. 26.  “After we started and got about 50 laps in, I was like, these guys are good and race with respect. I had a blast.”

Pollard has won virtually every major super late model event from Florida to Washington state and even Canada. With nearly 100 checkered flags over the last decade and more accolades than one could count, Pollard says his experience at the 2018 Oxford 250 was an eye opener.

“I’ve traveled up and down the road and raced at a lot of places, but the Oxford 250 is probably the coolest race I’ve ever been a part of,” said Pollard. “I’m excited to get there this weekend and race in front of that awesome crowd.

Competitors will once again have the opportunity to race for one of the richest winner’s purses in asphalt short track racing, with $25,000 to win, plus an additional $25,000 in lap leader money. Pollard took home more than $28,000 last year for his efforts in becoming the first southern driver to win the race since Tommy Ellis in 1983.

While no one in the last two decades has led more than Joey Polewarcyzk Jr.’s 205 laps in 2012, if a driver could somehow manage to lead all 250 laps, they would take home $50,000 for the win.

In 2010, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was all about calming fears.

At his state of the league address in Chicago, he stated that the NHL was growing, albeit "not as strong perhaps in terms of the speed of growth that we were seeing and would like to continue to see as it was before the economic downturn." He said the Coyotes were staying in Arizona, the Hurricanes weren't leaving Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Islanders were safe in New York. (Ironically, no one asked about the Atlanta Thrashers.) He defended the idea of multiple outdoor games in a season, which the NHL was attempting for the first time. He called the 2010 Vancouver Olympics a "mixed bag" for the NHL, because apparently some things never change.

About a decade later, the NHL is in a much different place. Revenues for the 2017-18 season were $4.86 billion, up from $2.9 billion in 2009-10. The action on the ice in the NHL has arguably never been better, thanks to rules changes that emphasized speed and an influx of elite offensive talent to exploit them. Relocation talk has quieted, while two new expansion teams were added. Things are, by and large, pretty good.

It's not a utopia. The NHL remains plagued with player safety issues, part of an ongoing identity crisis for a league built on bloody rivalries that have become much more pallid. There's debate about everything from video reviews to the playoff format. There's still much work to be done to grow the game.

But the NHL did a lot of growing in the past 10 years.

Below are 10 sweeping changes and trends in the NHL as this decade nears its close. Keep in mind that this is an NHL-centric list, so it doesn't cover landmark moments like the U.S. women's national team fighting for equality and winning Olympic gold, or the historic formation of two professional women's leagues. There's plenty to the story of hockey in the past decade beyond the league.

Here's a look back at how the NHL changed in the past decade, and a look ahead at what will happen next for the league. It's going to be a fascinating next 10 years.

Click here to skip ahead:

• Offense surges; fighting disappears

• The Department of Player Safety

• The 2013 CBA

• The league addresses the concussion epidemic

• The digital and social media boom

• Embrace of the analytics revolution

• Realignment and the wild cards

• 3-on-3 overtime/expanded video review

• Thrashers end; Jets, Golden Knights and Seattle begin

• Legalized sports wagering

Offense surges; fighting disappears

What happened: The change wasn't immediate. In 2008-09, the average goals per team in the NHL was 2.91. It would actually take the league until 2017-18 to surpass that mark (2.97), as part of a four-season uptick in offense. Then, in 2018-19, the NHL broke through with a 3.01 goals-per-team average; excluding the post-lockout anomaly of 2005-06, it was the best offensive season the NHL had seen since Mario Lemieux led the league with 161 points and teams averaged 3.14 goals in 1995-96.

What led to the goal-scoring outburst? There were plenty of theories, including subtle rules enforcement changes for slashing and net-front defense and improvements in special-teams scoring. But it may have been as simple as the perfect confluence of offensive-friendly systems arriving as an influx of spectacularly creative young talents -- Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Patrik Laine among them -- arrived on the scene.

As pucks flew into the net with renewed regularity, fists flying between players continued a steep decline. In 2008-09, there were 734 fights in the NHL. That number dropped every season of the following decade all the way down to 224 fights in 2018-19, a nadir for the league. In 2008-09, 41.4 percent of regular-season games had a fight. Last season, just 15.3 percent of games had one.

One of the reasons John Scott's unlikely election to the 2016 All-Star Game resonated with fans was because he was one of the last traditional enforcers left in the NHL. It was a moment to celebrate a role that had been slowly eliminated from teams, and the cult status of the players whose particular set of skills was no longer needed.

What happens next: Offensive numbers will continue to climb in the short term, until teams begin to course-correct with more defensive systems. It's an inevitable circle of life in the NHL: Scoring goes up, then it goes down, and then the league changes or reinforces its rules to balloon goal scoring again.

Fighting won't see the same boomerang effect, continuing to decline precipitously. "No, I don't ever see it reversing," former NHL pugilist Matthew Barnaby told ESPN last month. "It's the way teams are being built. And having coached junior, it's not a part of that culture anymore, with all the rules in place."

The Department of Player Safety

What happened: In 2011, future Hockey Hall of Famer Brendan Shanahan was deputized by Bettman to head up the new Department of Player Safety, which would oversee supplemental discipline for on-ice incidents. But Shanahan didn't simply want to hand out suspensions. His initial aim was twofold: Educate players on the proper way to play the modern game, using video explanations of suspensions to break down what was and wasn't allowed; and target those repeat offenders whom the NHL was suspending with frequency.

Under Shanahan, Stephane Quintal and current director George Parros, the Department of Player Safety has policed the NHL effectively but not without controversy, as cries of favoritism and inconsistency have dogged it for years. The players' ability to appeal suspensions of six or more games to a neutral arbitrator further complicated things. But the number of catastrophic hits to the head, and annual offenders, has dropped during the department's era.

What happens next: Parros is eventually succeeded by another player who competed on the edge of legality, but the department adds new voices in players who were better known for taking injurious hits than delivering them.

The NHL makes the neutral arbitration process, in which it has taken a few losses, an issue in the next collective bargaining talks.

The 2013 CBA

What happened: If there's a collective bargaining agreement expiring and Gary Bettman is the commissioner, you know what happened: a lockout, in this case spanning 113 days and forcing the cancellation of 510 games. But after the dust settled and the pain subsided, the NHL had ratified a new agreement that established a few key elements which shaped the league for the rest of the decade:

• The end of back-diving contracts, as a maximum 50% variance in salaries over the course of the contract ended the practice of embarrassingly low final contract years used to circumvent the salary cap.

• The "Roberto Luongo Rule," in which teams that had issued and were paying out those circumventing contracts would be punished through "recapture" penalties.

• Contract term limits, as teams could re-sign their own players to a maximum of eight years and sign free agents to a max of seven years.

• The ability to retain salary in trades, which significantly changed the transactions market (and the frequency of our visits to independent sites Cap Geek and Cap Friendly).

• A 50/50 split in revenue between players and owners that would impact escrow withholdings.

Unlike after the canceled 2004-05 season, the fans returned quickly when the lockout ended. By the end of the decade, revenues continued to climb and the salary cap had gone from $64.3 million in 2013 to $81.5 million by 2019.

What happens next: The NHL and the NHLPA both have a chance to reopen the CBA this September before its 2022 expiration, but there are other options being considered, including an extension on the current deal. Among the sticking points: escrow payments and the future of international play, including an in-season World Cup and Olympic participation.

The league addresses the concussion epidemic

What happened: The word "epidemic" was used with some frequency to describe concussions in the NHL, at a time when the sports world as a whole was wising up to the deleterious effects of contact sports on the human brain. From Bob Probert's posthumous diagnosis of CTE in 2010 through the tragic losses of players like Derek Boogaard, Todd Ewen and Steve Montador, it was a decade defined by a growing awareness of concussions and mounting pressure on the NHL -- from legislators and lawyers -- to do something about it.

In March 2011, the league's first big step was a revision to the Protocol for Concussion Evaluation and Management, in which players who were suspected of having suffered a concussion were sent to "the quiet room" for evaluation by a physician. In 2016, that protocol was expanded to include "spotters" in the arena and watching games on television, who could demand a player showing concussion symptoms be pulled from the game for evaluation.

Even with the best intentions, the system was flawed, as players willfully hid symptoms, teams appeared to speed up the evaluation process and players who entered the protocol were later seen as damaged goods. Meanwhile, vocal critics of the NHL, many of whom joined an ill-fated class action suit, demanded help for former players battling health issues as well as increased concussion awareness for today's talents.

What happens next: The NHL and NHLPA will further their partnership on concussion education, as seen in this 2019 video, while linkage between CTE and contact sports -- a link thus far denied by Bettman at every turn, despite its being acknowledged in other sports -- will be further established as more subjects become available for study.

The digital and social media boom

What happened: NHL teams and players discovered the virtues, absurdities and pitfalls of social media.

Take the Los Angeles Kings and Columbus Blue Jackets, who in the early part of the decade were early adopters of the sassy, humorous tone that other teams would eventually emulate. (Or, in the case of the Golden Knights, amplify to the point of apology.) NHL players would use Twitter to add layers to their personalities (or in some cases, "brand") -- some, like Roberto Luongo and Paul Bissonnette, became as well known for their tweets as their on-ice accomplishments.

But social media wasn't without its drawbacks: Offensive tweets would haunt -- or come back to haunt -- players, with stars like Tyler Seguin claiming they were "hacked" to excuse offensive content.

There are other aspects to the digital and social media boom, including the fact that cameras are everywhere. Whether it's Connor McDavid awkwardly posing for airport photos or Patrick Kane on a college campus bender or Ottawa players trash-talking their coaches in an Uber, images and footage could and would go viral in an instant.

The NHL itself would also leverage social media, first by allowing fans to upload highlights and create GIFs from games, and then by adopting the practice itself. It would also embrace digital media, with a partnership with MLB Advanced Media that transformed the league's video and streaming efforts.

What happens next: New generations of NHL players adopt new forms of social media -- where are you, first rookie TikTok star? -- while teams and the league continue to utilize Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as means through which to offer original (and filtered) content to their customers.

As the next TV rights deal nears for the NHL, expect the league's streaming rights to be a hot property for companies looking to make a sports rights deal splash.

Embrace of the analytics revolution

What happened: To understand the expeditious rise of analytics in hockey over the past decade, consider this: A 2012 analytics panel at the MIT Sloan Conference featured noted mathematician Mike Milbury, as well as Brian Burke's infamous line: "Statistics are like a lamppost to a drunk: useful for support, but not for illumination."

Fast forward to 2019, and the NHL's Seattle expansion team was receiving widespread praise for hiring Alexandra Mandrycky as a director of hockey administration, after her three-year stint as an analyst with the Minnesota Wild ended and following her run as co-founder of the War On Ice analytics site. In the same summer, the New Jersey Devils made waves by hiring Tyler Dellow as VP of hockey analytics, a few years after he was a consultant for the Edmonton Oilers. In 2012, he was blogging about them.

Almost every NHL team has a public analytics analyst as of 2019. Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas famously assembled a full department to study them when he was hired. Fancy stats were the calling card of John Chayka when he became the youngest GM in NHL history with the Coyotes. Bloggers who touted possession stats, like Eric Tulsky and Tim Barnes, were snatched up by teams -- the Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals, in Tulsky's and Barnes' cases -- to improve theirs.

Meanwhile, fans and media have become more fluent in analytics, opening up new ways to analyze players or explain the plight of teams. Halfway through the decade, the NHL added possession metrics and other advanced stats to its database.

We've come a long way from the math vs. "eye test" wars.

What happens next: Teams will continue to hire the best and brightest to fill out their front offices with data analysts, and we'll see the first analytics hires climb the ladder to assistant general manager jobs. Meanwhile, the arrival of puck and player tracking will transform the way analytics data is collected and revolutionize the way we evaluate players, especially when it comes to goalies, aka those waiting for their moment in the analytics revolution.

Realignment and the wild cards

What happened: The 2009-10 NHL standings look nothing like the ones a decade later. The Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets were in the Western Conference. There were six divisions, and three of them were named the Southeast, Northeast and Northwest. The top eight teams in each conference made the playoffs.

Then, in 2013-14, a major change: The Wings and Jackets moved East, the league was split into four (sorta) geographically defined divisions and the playoff format shifted to six divisional qualifiers and two wild cards in each conference. How teams qualify for the playoffs would also change, as regulation and overtime wins became a primary tiebreaker, while shootouts' influence on the standings was diminished.

What happens next: Criticism of the current format will continue -- including the "stupidest thing ever" bracketing in the playoffs that frequently forces two of the top teams to face off in the first round -- until it's loud enough to force a change. However, a playoff expansion could also be on the horizon, as the bottom two seeds could end up in "play-in" games/series against the next two seeds.

The dawn of 3-on-3 overtime/expanded video review

What happened: In 2015, the NHL's board of governors approved two rules changes that altered the course of the rest of the decade. First, the league dispensed with 4-on-4 overtime in favor of a 3-on-3 format. The thought here was the open ice and back-and-forth nature of the 3-on-3 would produce more overtime goals and reduce the number of shootouts. The results were more kinetic than tedious, and soon the NHL All-Star Game was transformed into a 3-on-3 mini-tournament.

The board also approved a much more controversial innovation: the coach's challenge, which allowed teams to use video review to challenge goals scored on plays that might have been offside or involved goalie interference. The catalyst for the offside reviews was an embarrassing missed call on Colorado Avalanche center Matt Duchene in 2013; by 2019, the reviews were criticized for focusing on players who were "pixels" offside, rather than egregious violations. The reviews of goalie interference were seen as a boon to goaltenders; by 2019, the NHL was still struggling to define what exactly it looked like.

What happens next: The NHL announced in June that rather than reduce the scope of the coach's challenge, it was expanding it to include "missed stoppages in play." That includes hand passes and pucks played after hitting the protective netting, just two of several humiliating missed calls from officials during the 2019 postseason. Referees will also have a chance to check their work on "major and match penalties" and "friendly-fire" high sticks.

Will it end there? Probably not, as the genie has clearly left the bottle and Bettman has said he doesn't see rollback on reviews. As for 3-on-3 overtime, there have been no recent calls to banish it.

Thrashers end; Jets, Golden Knights and Seattle begin

What happened: The last decade without expansion or relocation in the NHL was the 1950s, and the 2010s kept the streak alive. The Atlanta Thrashers entered the league in 1999 and exited their city in 2011, when True North Sports & Entertainment purchased the struggling franchise to rechristen it as the second coming of the Winnipeg Jets. The Thrashers' legacy would be one of player exoduses and a 12-year existence without a playoff victory, having been swept by the Rangers in their only postseason series.

The Vegas Golden Knights, meanwhile, had the opposite expansion journey: making the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season (2017-18) after getting approved as the NHL's 31st franchise. A successful season-ticket drive that left casinos and major corporations out of the pool impressed the NHL board of governors, which awarded Vegas with a team while the Quebec City expansion bid fell short.

In 2019, the NHL accepted its 32nd franchise to the fold, as Seattle was approved by the board of governors to begin play in a renovated KeyArena in the 2021-22 season. Seattle was nearly an NHL city in 2013 had the Coyotes not agreed to a new lease with the city of Glendale. By the end of the decade, Arizona had gone from constant relocation bait to being a cap-ceiling team under new owner Alex Meruelo.

What happens next: All appears quiet on the expansion front after Seattle's entrance to the NHL, but if any current franchises are suddenly on unstable financial and ownership ground, Houston and Quebec are ready and waiting for a relocation.

Legalized sports wagering

What happened: It began when the Golden Knights entered the NHL. Betting on hockey at neighboring casinos by local and visiting hockey fans became part of the game-night experience. Vegas sportsbooks reported a previously unheard-of spike in hockey wagering, for a sport that had previously failed to inspire much action.

Then things got really interesting: In May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was unconstitutional, opening up legalized sports wagering to all 50 states. Now, instead of the wink-wink betting of daily fantasy sports that the NHL had invested in, wagering on NHL games could become commonplace. Bettman, previously an opponent of legalized sports wagering on hockey, embraced it as a new avenue through which hockey could attract fans.

What happens next: Suffice it to say, the rollout of sports wagering has been methodical. Just 13 states including Nevada, as well as the District of Columbia, have legalized it, although dozens more are expected to do so in the near future.

The NHL, meanwhile, has been cutting licensing deals with sportsbooks; when all that player tracking data starts flowing in, get ready to wager on everything from location of shots to the speed of skaters.

LOS ANGELES - Carlos Vela's second goal in LAFC's 4-0 victory over San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday may have been reminiscent of Lionel Messi, but coach Bob Bradley isn't getting carried away, or taking credit for the Mexico international's form.

Bradley garnered headlines after an ESPN+ documentary showed the head coach encouraging Vela to get as close to Messi's level as possible and the 30-year-old has certainly responded this season, netting twice against the Earthquakes and recording a goal or an assist every 55 minutes this season.

- ESPN fantasy: Sign up now!
- When does the transfer window close?

"To be clear on this, it's 100 percent sure that Carlos isn't playing this well because I told him to be like Messi," Bradley said postmatch. "If it was that easy, I'd tell them all [to be like Messi], or I'd tell some to be like Xavi to spread it out a little bit."

Bradley said the comparison had been "blown out of proportion" but the point he was trying to stress appears to have reached the intended target.

"My point to Carlos was just that when you come to MLS you have to set the bar that high," Bradley added. "I've heard him say it, when he was in La Liga and there was Cristiano [Ronaldo] and Messi and some other guys, it's hard for him to think 'I want to be the best guy in the league.' But when he got here I wanted him to think: now is your chance [to be the best in the league]."

Vela stated in a news conference that it is difficult to affirm that this is the best form of his career because of the difficulty of playing in La Liga, but stressed the key to his 26 goals and 15 assists this season has been his happiness off the field.

Former U.S. national team head coach Bradley said Vela has taken on the responsibility of leading an LAFC side now preparing for Sunday's "El Trafico" against local rival LA Galaxy, who LAFC has never defeated.

"It means more, it's the emotion in the game, the intensity of the game, so far with all the things we've done we haven't beaten them so it's certainly something we're all thinking about," he said of Sunday's game. "So we've got to be ready and have a great go at it, enjoy it, try to take our football and put it out there knowing it's got to be with intensity, with concentration, with a lot of things, that's what derbies are all about. It should be a good night."

Earthquakes coach Matias Almeyda was sent off during the first half of the game and was left frustrated with the decision, but apologized for his reaction after receiving his marching orders.

"I lost my head and I publicly apologize," he told reporters.

The result leaves the Earthquakes in sixth position in the Western Conference, but without a victory now in four matches.