St Pat's defeated Orange Hawks 32-6 in Peter McDonald Premiership

The blue and whites have now won four consecutive Peter McDonald Premiership games, with their latest success a comprehensive 26-point win over Orange Hawks at Jack Arrow Oval on Sunday afternoon.

The hosts took a 16-6 lead to the sheds, before continuing the onslaught in the second half to claim a 32-6 win.

St Pat's skipper Zac Merritt said his team was "resilient" in their game.

"We were a little bit scrappy but the boys turned up and we were very resilient with our defence.

"That really showed on the scoreline, as we only conceded the six points."

Merritt said he was more pleased with his team's performance in the second half, especially after the hosts bombed a few tries in the opening 40 minutes.

"I thought in the second half we made the most of our opportunities but in the first half, we bombed two opportunities," he said.

"We sort of addressed that we needed to finish strong and in the second half, I thought we did that.

"The boys pushed up around the ball, which we trained to do."

St Pat's started with strong field position and in the ninth minute, the break through came when Hayden Bolam kicked into the try zone from dummy half, which saw Willy Wright dive on the bouncing ball.

Wright was unsuccessful with his conversion but the Saints had an early 4-0 lead.

But 15 minutes later, the visitors would bounce back.

A mistake from Saints on their own tryline allowed Hawks winger Ben French to pick up the scraps and score untouched.

Ryan Manning made no mistake with his conversion, giving the Orange club a 6-4 lead.

Five minutes later, Saints regained the lead when Merritt busted free of a tackle to crash over and score under the posts.

It was an easy conversion attempt for Wright and with no mistake, Saints took a 10-6 lead.

Saints five-eight Noah Griffiths was causing problems for the Hawks defenders when he sent towering bomb after towering bomb up into the air and the pressure ultimately paid when Ash Cosgrove scored a few tackles later after a drop ball, two minutes out from the break.

The conversion was successful and Saints took a 16-6 lead into the sheds.

It took the blue and whites just five minutes after the half-time break to score again, when Haze Raweti scored a set following a Hawks error.

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Wright was unsuccessful from his conversion attempt but Saints still held a 20-6 lead.

Hawks battled bravely in the second half, but the pressure would ultimately be too much for them, when Saints scored two more converted tries in the last eight minutes.

The first came when Merritt evaded a number of Hawks defenders to crash over near the posts, the Saints skipper securing a rare double.

With just over a minute left on the clock, it was Griffiths' turn to get on the scoresheet, when he ran 30 metres to score under the posts.

Merritt said the result was extra pleasing, as it added to the solid 42-10 away win against Mudgee the previous week.

"We wanted to build from last week's win against Mudgee," he said.

"We knew Hawks really pushed Mudgee and they always come to play."

Hawks coach Shane Rodney said he was disappointed with his team's performance in the second half.

"In the first half we really showed them that we can definitely compete with them and I'm confident if we fix a few of our own things up that they're beatable," he said.

"But they played well today.

"We'll go back to the drawing board now. We'll get a couple of weeks off [with the June long weekend and a bye].

"We've had a pretty solid month, so we'll re-group and then come in and hit the end of the season hard."

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