The recent stutter by the two teams at the top of the National League may not have thrown the championship race wide open but it can be seen as an early Christmas present to their rivals and, indeed, the rest of us. Both Cork City and St Patrick's Athletic have allowed points to slip away all over the place in the past three weeks. Although the Dubliners still enjoy an 11-point lead over third-placed Finn Harps we have at least started to see signs of vulnerability which gives hope to the chasing pack. Of the top two, Cork's loss of form over the past four weeks has been the more remarkable. Three draws and a defeat is surprising enough but three of the games were against teams in varying degrees of relegation trouble. The home draw with Bohemians can go down as two points squandered while such were the team's shortcomings in the wind and rain at Oriel Park that Dave Barry was the first to admit that the draw represented a point gained.

Now UCD have beaten them at Turner's Cross and the air of near invincibility that City had built up over the opening three and a half months of the campaign will be very hard to recover. Over the holiday period the leaders play Waterford United (away) and Sligo Rovers (home), two matches they would have expected to win comfortably a few weeks ago.

On the plus side, though, the City squad should be at its strongest by the time the matches against the teams currently lying second and third come around. Kelvin Flanagan was back in Cork's starting line-up last Sunday, Colin O'Brien came on as a substitute, Fergus O'Donoghue is only recently back after a long layoff and Stephen Napier is on the verge of making a first-team appearance.

The greater creativity in midfield provided by the return of O'Brien and Patsy Freyne should help Cork to improve their goalscoring record, for much of their recent difficulties can be put down to the fact that their average has dropped from over two to under a goal a game.

Like Cork, St Patrick's have mirrored the current success of the overstaffed English outfits but, unlike their rivals, they have had virtually a full-strength squad to pick from since Eddie Gormley returned from suspension a couple of games ago.

Stephen McGuinness, who has done well for the champions since nailing down the place on the right-hand side of Liam Buckley's three-man defence, was missing on Friday night for the game against Harps but with Mick Moody there to step in and Willie Burke, Jeff Clarke, Keith Doyle and Paul Campbell all languishing on the bench there is hardly a problem for St Patrick's at the back.

Still, they managed to concede two soft goals against Harps. So the problem may lie in the system that they are playing or, perhaps, in the lack of decent cover that the defence is receiving from midfield.

The attacking credentials of wing backs Trevor Croly and Keith Doyle certainly seem to stand up to scrutiny and the team's strike-rate remains highly respectable - 10 goals in the last six games. But unlike last season, the champions have had difficulty keeping clean sheets.

While the defensive contributions of Paul Osam and Gormley have been solid enough, Martin Russell, who is as talented as anybody at the club going forward, can take on the appearance of a luxury when things start to get a bit tougher at the back.

The fact remains, however, that the leaders will have to drop more points before any of the chasing pack can consider themselves serious contenders.

Even then, one doubts whether Harps, Rovers or, particularly, Shelbourne have the ability to produce a run that would get them back into contention.

On Friday night after his team had thrown away a wonderful chance to chip three points off the lead, Harps manager Charlie McGeever didn't look like a man who reckoned his side were holding too many championship aces. And neither Liam Buckley nor Dave Barry have sounded too worried about the setbacks of the last few weeks just yet.

But at least the results of recent weeks raise doubts about the leading pair and give hope to the chasing pack that it may not be a two-horse race, which can only help to generate interest in the league as a whole.