Five games left and, after hitting top spot last weekend, the pressure should be on new WNL front-runners Wexford Youths.
Not so, insists Kylie Murphy, who has been there and done that on multiple occasions since joining the club over a decade ago.
"This is our favourite time of the season," laughed the Laois woman, who turned 34 at the start of the month and scored her 100th goal for the club last weekend, and having surpassed the 250 appearance milestone during the summer.
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Murphy scored Wexford's fifth and last goal in the 83rd minute of the 5-2 victory over Cork City and, with long-time leaders Shelbourne losing to Peamount, the side from the south-west hit the front for the first time in this campaign.
"It was a great day all round," reflected Murphy, before recalling that Wexford's kitman/statsman extraordinaire Eddie Cullen had informed her after she scored in 3-3 draw with Peamount on May 21 that she was on 97 goals.
"Then I went on a goal drought and I told him, 'don't ever tell me what number I'm on again'," she joked.
Murphy had to wait eight League games before scoring again, but has done so in her last three outings, with Wexford hitting 14 goals in that spell.
But while their run to the top of the table is timely, Wexford have to face their closest pursuers Shels, Peamount and Athlone before the season's end.
"We're on top now but we know it can go up and down very quickly as well," she cautioned.
"It doesn't matter who is in first or second place right now - we can probably still end up fourth or fifth, it's the most competitive League I've ever seen. It's about staying competitive and staying within touching distance.
"There's no excitement when a team wins the League with four games to go. Having said that, it would be lovely to wrap it up early."
Murphy has won the WNL title and the FAI Women's Cup on four occasions with Wexford.
But she admits that the wait since 2018 to lift the League trophy has been intolerable. "It has felt more like 10 years than four," said the carpenter.
"The gap has felt like too long for a big club like Wexford. We've been there or thereabouts but the best team always wins the League and it's where we want to be."
Speaking two years ago when she was on the verge of her 200th game, Murphy confessed that the onset of the Covid pandemic probably extended her career as she was having thoughts before that of packing it in.
Instead, she realised that she didn't want to go without. With no interest for now in coaching, Murphy is happy to keep going "as long as I can contribute," she said.
A move to centre forward from midfield last year helped, as she no longer had to run box to box all the time, and she scored 15 goals. This year she has played in more of a no 10 role and has been happy to track back.
"It has been a different challenge over the past two years and that has helped me," she confided.
"I do need a lot of recovery time now, I'm not a spring chicken any more, but as long as the body is OK to keep going, I want to make a difference.
"I absolutely love the club and have given everything to it. You'd want to live it for the effort you put in!".
Meanwhile, Murphy insists it is time to go semi-pro in the week that it was confirmed that Galway WFC will be no more after this season.
The hope is that Galway United will have the resources to take up the mantle and field three women's teams next year, but Murphy believes that FAI bosses must read the room and change the terms of engagement.
"Yeah, I do," she said.
"Players give so much in terms of commitment and because of that, success can come down to the smallest things, like recovery.
"Maybe if players go semi-pro, they can take time off work, do one day less or whatever so they can work on their game more.
"But also, this League is losing too many players - the amount who have gone across the pond is unbelievable.
"Imagine if they had been able to stay here, where the League would be now.
"At least if the clubs were semi-pro they would be getting a transfer fee, which they could put back into the development side of things. As it is, they can't be letting these amazing players go for nothing."
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