Cavan ladies forward Roisin O'Keeffe feels the recent sponsorship deal between Lidl and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association speaks volumes about the sport's unwavering development.

Last month saw Lidl become the Official Retail Partner to the LGFA and title sponsors of the Lidl Ladies National Football League, with the global brand investing €1.5m in the first year of a three-year deal with the association.

Now in her 11th season with the Breffni women (an impressive feat at just 26 years old), dual star O'Keeffe says that the commitment demonstrated by Lidl to ladies football is unparalleled in comparison to past advertising campaigns in the sport.

"If you look around now, all the billboards and different advertising campaigns that they have, you wouldn't even have seen that two or three years ago for the All-Ireland finals. Now you're seeing it for league campaigns," said O'Keeffe, a significant factor in Cavan's 2013 All-Ireland IFC victory.

"You can definitely see that it's going to be of huge benefit to ladies football and to the development of it and probably the nicest thing to see is that it's not just inter-county that they are investing in.

"They've committed to helping out clubs and colleges and even at school level, so it's not just that they want to be seen at inter-county level. It's a whole ladies football development promotion that they are doing."

The Lacken native has also taken encouragement from the fact that the new sponsors have committed to a three-year deal.

"Even thinking about it now compared to say five years ago, it's unbelievable to think that a big company like Lidl have committed to investing in ladies football for three years," she stated.

"It's not just a one year thing; it's three years. So they've shown that they're willing to invest in the sport and I don't think there's anybody that's going to say that it's a bad thing.

"It's absolutely fantastic. It just shows how much the game has come on and how it's being taken serious and everyone is trying to push it on now even more."

As for the famous 'Ladyball' campaign, which drew criticism on social media after it claimed to be in support of introducing a new pink ball "specifically designed for a lady's game", O'Keeffe felt that the hoax was a cleverly designed one by the LFGA and Lidl.

"When I saw it first I think I had the same reaction as most people did because I was quite shocked with it," admitted the centre-forward.

"Look it was fantastic. It was a very smart campaign and it definitely got people talking about ladies football. It showed that we want to be taken serious and maybe how we felt that we weren't being.

"I thought it was brilliant and definitely got a reaction from everybody."

Now the focus is very much back on the field for all counties. The opening round of the Lidl Ladies National Football League saw Cavan score a comprehensive home win over Kildare in their Division Two opener and with an enthusiastic young manager in Conor Barry now in his second season the team are looking to deliver.

"He (Barry) wants to push on from last year," O'Keeffe replied when asked about the Blues' objectives for 2016.

"We had a good league campaign last year and we were unbeaten the whole way through the group stages, but what was probably the most disappointing thing from last year was our semi-final performance in the league. So we definitely want to get ourselves back into a semi-final again and work a little bit harder towards that.

"Championship-wise, we lost to Tyrone after extra-time in the first round and we definitely felt we could have played better. At the end of the day though, Tyrone have been a senior team for a long time and I thought we showed that we are well able of competing with the senior teams. So we'd be hoping that we can push on because while we had a good year last year, we want to progress on now this year."

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