Survival hopes are slipping away for Southampton Saints following yesterday's 1-0 defeat at Doncaster Belles in the FA Women's Premier League National Division.

Ivor Gumm's second-to-bottom girls now face the awesome task of having to beat the top two sides - Fulham and Arsenal - to try to stay up.

It's a near impossible task, but Gumm refuses to look on the dark side. He said: "If we go down, we shall do so believing that we should still be in the top flight and that we will go straight back up again next season.

"We've got a young squad but a lot of them were out there against Doncaster today thinking: 'Hang on, I can play at this standard.' They're not as far away as some of them thought they were and, provided we get in the right number of scheduled games, we'll be promoted by Christmas."

Lucy Ward was credited with scrambling in Doncaster's winner.