St Pat's is currently trailing Centrals by 180 runs after the Orange club was dismissed for 194 off 61 overs, before the Bathurst club posted a score of 2-14 by stumps.

In the other crucial match, current table toppers Orange City - who lead St Pat's by four points - are trailing Cavaliers by 171 runs heading into day two, with the match definitely in the balance.

St Pat's skipper Adam Ryan knows how important it is to win on Saturday, not only to give his team a chance at winning the minor premiership, but also to be in a good run of form heading into the finals.

"It's massive but also you need momentum going into finals. It wouldn't be a really good read if we start losing that momentum that we've had for most of the season," he said.

"So we don't want to go into finals on the back of two losses. We really need to make sure we put our best foot forward."

And while Centrals did perform well on day one, Ryan remains confident that St Pat's will deal with the Orange threat on day two.

"You always give yourself a crack. Even if we only had one wicket left, I'd still think we could get there," he said.

"I've always got that confidence in the team to do the job. We do get some players back this week that will really help with the run chase."

St Pat's will welcome Angus Parsons, Tom Siede and Cooper Bryant (he was named 12^th man last week but never played) into the squad for two day, with Mitch Taylor unavailable and Brendon Cutmore dropping out of the squad.

"We've still got a pretty long tail to go there," Ryan said.

"We were probably a little bit too aggressive last week, so that's probably what allowed them to get a few more runs. We really started the game going for the outright, but now we've got to shift our focus to securing first innings."

Play will resume between St Pat's and Centrals at Riawena Oval from 1.30pm.

In other games, Orange City (1-9) will continue its game trailing Cavaliers (180) by 171 runs, Centennials Bulls (4-81) trial CYMS (127) by 46 runs, Kinross (125) leads City Colts (7-45) by 80 runs) and Bathurst City (198) lead Rugby Union (3-31) by 167 runs.

The Orange City-Cavaliers match will be at Bloomfield Oval, the Centennials-CYMS game will be held at Sportsground, Colts are playing Kinross on their turf and the Bathurst City versus Rugby Union showdown is at Morse Park 1.

All matches will be live scored via the Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket website.

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