Welcome, welcome to Richmond Kickers Weekly. My name is Darrell Grove and I'm joined by a man who received a lot of sympathetic head nods on Friday evening.

His name is Taylor Rockwell.

Hey, buddy.

Yeah, that is true.

We went to the Screaming Eagles tailgate before the DC United game.

Yes.

And the few people that engaged me in conversation about the Richmond Kickers, it always ended with a like, yeah, so the kickers, what's going on? And then it was a lot of that, like, and I was like,

well, you know, it's this, and you just get that sort of nod, like, yeah, I remember what it's like when our team was dead last in the standings. Because DC had a run kind of like this, right? But they also weirdly won the US Open Cup that year?

I don't think the kickers are going to do that since that falls into the losing streak.

Or the winless streak.

Yeah, North Carolina and after that.

Right. won the US Open Cup that year? I don't think the kickers are going to do that since that falls into the losing streak.

Or the winless streak. Yeah, North Carolina and after that. Maybe we get their spot? We take it back. Speaking of, so we were in D.C. this weekend for the live show, which we enjoyed. But that meant that we couldn't go to City Stadium to see the kickers take on North Texas SC. If we had been there, we would have seen the kickers eighth game in a row without a win. Eighth USL League one game in a row without a win. And what, six games now without a goal? But that didn't mean that we didn't care. Because after the show on Saturday, we were out to dinner and you and I were sitting near enough to each other that we could sort of check the score midway through the game and it was 2-0 in like the 58th minute and I started to scroll back to see when did this happen? Like maybe it was laid on. Maybe the kickers have fought hard. Instead it was what two goals inside the first 14 minutes. Yes it was. Pretty much all she wrote from there. The 10th and the 14th. Yeah. I mean, honestly, so this wasn't a beating, right?

It's not like a 4-0 win. But I feel like when you can see two goals in the first 15 minutes, the game's weirdly over. So it's like a beating where they stop beating us. Stop, stuff is already dead. I mean, look at the way they celebrate, they being North Texas, celebrate those first two goals. and celebrate is a loose term for what they do, if anything,

because it's sort of a like, you know, group hot or high fives,

but it's very much. celebrate they be North Texas, celebrate those first two goals. And Celebrate is a loose term for what

they do, if anything, because it's sort of a like, you know, group hot all high fives, but it's very much a, yeah, that's what we're supposed to do. They also, I believe, have already since played another game. I think they've had a midweek game, too, North Texas have. So they sort of maybe just had like a lot going on.

And to be fair, I don't think that's about like their casual,

their blase about scoring against the kickers.

I think North Texas are just the class of the league and they're kind of just expect to score whomever they play. I really do feel like they're kind of North Texas in League one, a Zard and we should all kneel before them. All right. I mean, yes, although that's slightly distressing because I don't know who the Superman is in this situation, so maybe they just end up winning.

I mean, yeah, yeah. Zod's going to win this time.

Shall we break down those two North Texas goals? Because it's interesting from a kicker's perspective, like there's some defensive mistakes that we can talk about.

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