Montrose continue to ask questions of the other challengers in League Two but, for managerless Cowdenbeath, Saturday was another bleak day.
On the brighter side for the Fifers, their board have been delighted with the quality of the applicants for the manager’s job and are hopeful of carrying out interviews this midweek and having the new man in place for the match against Elgin City on Saturday.
Montrose opened the scoring with a close-in finish from Terry Masson in nine minutes.
He scored again, with a header, on the 20-minute mark.
Gable Endies’ keeper Allan Fleming had a superb save from a Shaun Rutherford free-kick on the interval whistle.
Cowden’s Robbie Buchanan broke their five-game goal drought with a neat header in 52 minutes.
A third Montrose goal, from a Craig Johnston head flick in 59 minutes, sealed the win for them.
John Ovenstone, who took the Cowden team on Saturday, said: “We did really well at times against one of the better teams in the division but shot ourselves in the foot with the two goals we conceded early in the game.
“The first came from a long throw which we did not cover properly, and the second from a set piece. In this division these are bread-and-butter situations which we should be matching, but we got caught out twice.”
Montrose boss Stewart Petrie was delighted with his team, who are in second-top spot.
“We started the game very well and you cannot ask for better than to be two-up away from home in 20 minutes.
“We knew Cowdenbeath would come back at us and they opened the second period well and scored a good goal, and it was important that Craig grabbed the third goal pretty quickly after they scored.
“A thoroughly professional performance and, if we can maintain that sort of consistency, we can be up their challenging.”