In League of Ireland football, St Patrick's Athletic boast a proud record of never having suffered relegation from the top flight.
For most of this season, the 2013 Premier Division champions have occupied spots at the wrong end of the table. With three sides dropping down to the First Division for 2018, the quest for survival was always going to be fraught.
Pat's took a big step in ensuring their safety with a spectacular 4-2 comeback victory over the champions Cork City at Richmond Park.
The visitors had raced into an early 2-0 lead through Ryan Delaney and Kiern Sadlier, but goals from Jordi Balk, Billy Dennehy, Ian Bermingham and Kurtis Byrne forced a remarkable turnaround.
Galway United's 2-2 draw with Limerick means that the Saints top flight status won't be decided until the final day of the season but a point against Derry will see them to safety and they may not even need that, depending on how results go elsewhere.
For Pat's Conan Byrne, relegation is something he couldn't countenance when he spoke to RTÉ Sport after the game.
"Myself, Ian Bermingham and Christy Fagan have won everything at this football club, and then to do the opposite and get relegated is just something we couldn't think of," he said.
At 2-0 down against the new champions, Byrne was full of praise in the effort put in to turn the game back in favour of Pat's.
"We've come from behind in so many games this season. going one-nil down, two-nil down. so we always felt we could turn it around," he added.
"We were creating chances and I felt Cork's goals were against the run of play. That said there was one absolutely marvellous strike from Kieran Sadlier, you are never going to save those.
"You simply can't be putting the head down in a relegation battle.
The lads were brilliant. You had lads that were nearly crawling into the dressing room after the game. It was a mighty effort.
"We had to go out and battle and we did that in spades. I don't think anybody could fault the effort.
"Once we got back to 2-2 at half-time, I felt there was only going to be one winner. Half-time probably came at the wrong time for us."
