STRONG defence has been a trademark of many of St Pat's success stories this season, but defence is now an area the Saints must improve as they head into the Western Youth League finals.
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The Saints lost just one of their Eastern Pool games to earn a spot in the eight-team finals series of the under 18s competition, while only Southern Pool outfit Forbes finished the regular rounds with a better for and against record.
Still, Saints coach Kevin Grimshaw feels his side has let their defensive efforts drop in intensity over the past fortnight.
It cost them in their 28-22 loss against Orange CYMS in round nine and while beating Lithgow Workies 28-16 at Jack Arrow Oval on Sunday, Grimshaw knows their line speed was not at its best.
"We are not getting off the line hard enough, that's what worrying me and what we need to work on. That's what happened at Orange against CYMS as well, that third quarter we were sitting back on our heels and letting them come to us," he said.
"To change the momentum of a game you can't do that, you've got to get off your line and put some pressure on them in defence.
"It can change momentum. You can change momentum of a team with one big defensive set of six or even one big tackle, one really good tackle.
"We started to do it a little bit against Workies, but then we dropped off and were sitting back on our heels again. We can't afford to do that against sides we don't know, it needs to be 100 percent from when the whistle blows until full-time."
But while there are things to improve on in defence, Grimshaw did take positives from the win over Lithgow.
"It was a good win. Workies went pretty good actually, I wasn't sure if they'd turn up wanting to play, but they did," he said.
"It gave us a good opportunity to give everyone some pretty good game time, it gave the full squad a chance to get some footy before the semis."
