Kilkenny City showed gritty resilience to overcome their injury crisis and maintain their promotion push with a narrow 1-0 defeat of bottom of the table St Francis at Buckley Park on Saturday night.
Local youngster Brian Jordan got the only goal of the game after 38 minutes when heading home Brian Arrigan's corner.
Kilkenny, who went into the match missing seven first-team players through injury, then survived the last 30 minutes with 10 men when David Breen was sent-off for pulling down Jason Ledwidge inside the area. Josh Moran saved Paul Irwin's penalty.
Cobh Ramblers remain joint third with Kilkenny thanks to Paul Coughlan's fourth goal in three matches to beat Home Farm/Everton at Whitehall. Coughlan punished a mistake by Justin Gleeson on 51 minutes.
Longford Town kept their outside hopes of a play-off place alive by coming from behind to beat Monaghan United 2-1 with a late winner from Wesley Byrne.
Andy Myler had given Monaghan a 15th minute lead. Evan Creedon equalised with a header from a Byrne free-kick before Byrne snatched the winner in the 88th minute.
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