Waterford United 1 Longford Town 2: Longford Town continue to be Waterford United's bogey side and, despite taking a first-half lead at the RSC last night, the Blues were overtaken and missed their opportunity to climb above Bray Wanderers at the bottom of the table.

Waterford looked the more industrious side during the early exchanges and, following a period of intense pressure on the Longford defence, they took the lead from the penalty spot on 26 minutes.

Robbie Hedderman played a long ball into the 18-yard area and defender Kevin Doherty whipped the legs out from under Paul McCarthy.

Even though goalkeeper Séamus Kelly got his hands on the rising ball, Ger McCarthy's penalty shot hit the roof of the net.

Longford equalised on 59 minutes with their first serious assault on the home goal. Dessie Baker played the ball through for David Mooney and his shot on-the-run was only parried by goalkeeper Ben Spicer into the path of Davy Byrne who steered the ball into the net.

And the midland side took the lead on 76 minutes when a Stephen Gough corner was headed away by Alan Kelly, but the inrushing Alan Kirby pounced on the ball and threaded his low shot through the crowded goalmouth into the corner of the net.

Longford had almost taken the lead four minutes earlier when Doherty swivelled in front of goal, but his shot was fumbled out of play by Spicer and the subsequent corner was cleared away.

Five minutes from the end, Longford's assistant manager, Aaron O'Callaghan, was ordered out of the dugout by referee Anthony Buttimer and he sat out the remaining minutes with his boss, Alan Matthews, who is already serving a three-month ban.

WATERFORD UNITED: Spicer, Flynn, Hedderman, Keely, Browne, Reynolds, Chambers, P McCarthy, G McCarthy, Brosnan (Grant, 68), Kavanagh.

LONGFORD TOWN: Kelly, Gough, Murphy, O'Connor, Kirby, Baker (Cronin, 85), Byrne, Doherty, Mooney (Wrexler, 92), Freeman, Brennan.

Referee: A Buttimer (Cork).