The county’s women footballers finally got off the mark this afternoon in this year’s Lidl National Football League. After a hard-fought battle with Kildare at Swinford, Liam McHale’s charges emerged the winners by the minimum margin on a scoreline of 3-4 to 0-12.

The three goals they scored were obviously key to today’s much-needed win, a victory that leaves relegation from Division One to be decided next weekend, even if it’s all but certain that we’re destined for the drop.

Kildare began today’s game brighter, scoring the opening two points. But then Sinéad Walsh broke through for her team’s opening goal and the MacHale Rovers player added a second later in the half. When Annie Gough netted from the penalty spot soon after, the home side were well in control. They took a well-deserved five-point lead into the break.

From there on, however, it was an uphill struggle. Scoring has been an area of concern for the team all year and the scores all but dried up over the course of an increasing nervy second half for them, as they only managed to add one further point to their tally.

That score – inevitably – came from Sinéad Walsh, who accounted for 2-4 of her team’s total today. It came right on the resumption but, from then to the end, it was a case of rearguard action all the way for the Green and Red.

Kildare slowly chipped away at the deficit as the half went on and, with ten minutes to go, they had reduced the gap to the minimum. That was as close as they got, however, as the home team clung on grimly from there to secure a one-point win.

Mayo’s final round game is away to Waterford, who this afternoon stunned defending League champions Armagh, beating them by ten points at Kilmacthomas. Liam McHale’s team have to win that away game to have any hope of surviving and even then it probably won’t be enough.

This is because Kildare are playing Tyrone next weekend and so our only route to safety involves a victory by the O’Neill County, which, if we manage to beat the Déise, would leave ourselves, Tyrone and Kildare level on six points.

Points difference would then decide the two relegation spots and that would doom Tyrone (currently on -58) while it would take something approaching a miracle for us (-30) to overhaul Kildare (-15). So, while today’s morale-boosting win means we’ve staved off the drop for another week, our relegation from the top tier looks set to be confirmed next weekend.