Longford Town's bubble refuses to burst. Stephen Kenny's surprise leaders came through their first major test of the season by beating second-placed Cobh Ramblers 2-0 at Strokestown Road on Saturday night to open the gap at the top of the table to five points.

Longford have won seven of their last eight league games and now have an eight-point cushion over promotion favourites Galway United, who crashed 4-2 at Kilkenny City. The sides meet at Terryland Park on Friday night.

Longford's match was the first real measure of the depth of Kenny's squad, with both regular fullbacks, Paul Perth and skipper Wesley Byrne, suspended. They weathered a first-half storm from the in-form Cobh, who had three efforts cleared off the Longford line, to take the lead on 43 minutes when Enda Kenny was upended in the area and Vinnie Perth drove home the penalty.

Longford doubled their lead on 54 minutes when Kenny scored with a powerful shot into the top corner of the net.

At Buckley Park, 18-year-old striker Michael Reddy inspired injury-hit Kilkenny to their best performance of the season as they came from behind to beat Galway after fielding three debutants.

Galway led 2-1 at the break. On 51 minutes Reddy won a penalty which Davy Walsh converted to make it 2-2 and then he put Kilkenny ahead four minutes later when punishing a mistake by Galway defender Fran Carter.

Kilkenny's fourth goal was the best of the lot, with Gerry Goodwin capping his debut when playing a one-two with Reddy before drilling the ball past Mark Cobey.

Limerick FC got back to winning ways after last week's surprise defeat at Home Farm with an exciting 3-2 win over Athlone Town at Hogan Park yesterday. Paul Carr took the score to 3-1 nine minutes after the break and Colin Fortune pulled a goal back for Athlone four minutes later.

At Gortakeegan, Home Farm/Everton snatched a point with a late equaliser from Robbie Farrell after Joe Hanrahan had given Monaghan the lead four minutes before half-time.