For an illustration of how the fortunes of the Revs and D.C. United had changed in recent times one only needed to cast a glimpse at both benches in the early stages of Saturday's game.

To my right Jay Heaps, so often a jack-in-the-box ready to explode at a moment's notice, sat back arms folded and looked (for him) relatively serene.

To the left stood Ben Olsen who, despite his immaculate attire and tan, looked as though he was clinging onto more than just the advertisement hoardings.

Indeed if an alien had just beamed down from the planet Zog and you asked him (or her, or it) which one of these two men was in charge of a team that made it to the Conference Finals last year while the other missed out on the playoffs he (or she, or it) would have got it wrong.

Bearing that in mind I find some of the criticism thrown the Revs way after what I thought was an entertaining 0-0 draw undeserved.

D.C. was never going to roll over and die and the warning signs were there early on when Jose Goncalves, of all people, was almost caught out.

You don't, as the saying goes, go from a good team to a bad team overnight and there was enough evidence in an end-to-end affair to suggest it won't be long until Olsen's men put that wretched run to bed.

That said the Revs were unlucky not to take all three points after delivering another high-energy performance a million miles away from what we were seeing earlier in the season.

If it was not for the heroics of Bill Hamid, who is the best keeper I have seen in MLS so far (bar Bobby Shuttleworth, of course), it would have been a different story.

Coach Heaps summed it up best when I grabbed him on his way to the dugout and asked him (rather bravely, I thought) whether this was indeed a 'trap game' as some had said.

He denied that was the case and told me he looked beyond results at the number of chances each opponent was creating when doing his homework.

If he was to view his own team's performance from that standpoint on Saturday night he could not fail to be impressed.