They copped a second half battering in defence and frequently gave away penalties in that time, but yesterday St Pat’s somehow emerged on top in the Group 10 premier league grand final replay against the Cowra Magpies.

Pat’s prevailed by just two points at the Sportsground after almost giving the game away in the back half.

The winning 24-22 score could be attributed to a strong period of play for the home side prior to half-time, before their discipline abandoned them.

Pat’s thought they had the match wrapped up when they were eight points ahead with just three minutes to spare, but a short kick-off saw the Magpies pinch a try on the end of the set.

The home side were able to survive the dying stages of the match and once again come out ahead of the Magpies in a much closer contest than last year’s decider. 

“The effort was there again. We’ll continue to work on the basics and things will turn around. I was pretty confident that we would win, but when there’s 

two minutes to go we’ve got to play the game out regardless of whether there’s a short kick-off or not,” Pat’s coach Kurt Hancock said.

“We’ll keep on believing in what we’ve got here as a football club at the moment. We’re just hanging in there with all the injuries we’ve got, having 15 players out across two teams today.”

Pat’s were down 6-4 heading into the last 10 minutes of the first half when their attack started to apply some pressure to the Magpies’ line.

Tries to Garry Reilly and Matt Tilley gave Pat’s a 14-6 lead at the break.

“We finally looked like things were going to get back on track then, and just after half-time as well, but then there was some inexperience showing there from guys playing in key positions,” Hancock said.

“Matt Tilley hasn’t played at half a great deal, he’s been at halfback. Hudson White at hooker and Benji (John) at lock. They need to learn how to close out a game, but they’ll take a lot out of this game.”

Magpies got off the mark first through a converted Mitch Browne try 10 minutes in, but the response came swiftly from Pat’s, who cut the margin back to two thanks to Dave Howard.

Chinks started to appear in the Magpies’ armour 30 minutes in when a typical piece of Reilly sidestepping allowed him to cross under the posts.

The very next set a Reilly grubber kick was pounced on by Tilley to tip the momentum back in the home team’s favour.

Following the half-time break, the blue and whites continued their run when Curtis Boardman finished off a strong Howard line break on the right wing.

From that point on, however, it was as if someone flicked a switch that put Pat’s to sleep.

Former Bathurst Bulldog Hayden Tidswell made the Pat’s line look average with his tackle bust which allowed him to set up Browne for his second try.

On the back of a 40-20 kick Toby Nobes was able to reel the gap back to two at 18-16, with the conversion unsuccessful.

Constant penalties and several handling errors from Pat’s allowed the Magpies camp in the Bathurst half.

However, Cowra couldn’t capitalise and they were made to pay the price four minutes from the final whistle.

It was none other than captain Mick Armstrong who intercepted a lofty pass out to the right wing and Garry Reilly was able to finish the play off to put Pat’s eight clear.

Magpies weren’t going down without a fight and from the kick-off regathered the ball to put Aiden Craig over in the left corner.

Pat’s survived the remaining minute and a half of play, but Cowra coach Steve Sutton was still pleased with how his side played out their second half.

“I’m really happy with our second half effort. I thought it was easily our best 40 minutes of the year, gives us something to build on, but disappointed we didn’t get the two points,” he said.

ST PAT’S 24 (Garry Reilly 2, Matt Tilley, Curtis Boardman, Dave Howard tries; Reilly 2 conversions) defeated COWRA MAGPIES 22 (Mitch Browne 2, Toby Nobes, Aiden Craig tries; Toi Sepuloni 2, Caley Mok conversions)