Premier League Hockey: Win and loss on busy weekend for St Pat's

St Pat's hosted Lithgow Panthers at the Cooke Hockey Complex on Saturday and while the scores were level at half time, a dominant display in the second half saw the visitors pull away to a 3-1 win.

But the girls in the blue and white turned it around on Sunday, to claim a 2-0 win over local rivals Bathurst City, with both goals coming in the first quarter of the match.

St Pat's coach Ben Weal said his team's performance in the first quarter would ultimately be the difference in clash with Bathurst City.

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"It was good the girls put [Saturday's loss] behind them and Sunday was a new game, a new day and we had to get the job done and that really strong first quarter helped," he said.

"We did drop off and cruised a little as the game went on, but we never really felt threatened.

"City had a couple of chances, but we defended quite well. That first quarter set the game up for us, scoring both goals that came off short corners."

Macey Fulton and Mish Somers scored the goals for St Pat's on Sunday.

In Saturday's match against Lithgow Panthers, Weal acknowledged the strength of the opposition, calling them the benchmark of the competition.

"They probably caught us out early, catching us out napping," he said.

"We came back to 1-all at the half time break, getting a goal back in the second quarter but the third and fourth quarter, we were under the pump there.

"Lithgow are very well drilled and we held them up largely, but just a couple of chances they put away.

"We did create some ourselves, which we didn't deal with as best as we could but they were really well drilled.

"They're the benchmark of the competition, so we want to get towards that too."

Ahead of Saturday's away match in Parkes, Weal said he'd like to see his team improve when it comes to the speed when passing the ball.

"We probably need to work on our ball speed on the transfer and what we do with that transfer, when we switch from one side to the other," he said.

"We are sort of getting it there but taking to much time with the ball.

"Once we get it to where we want it, we just need the speed to get where we want to get it."

Bathurst City was also scheduled to play Orange United on Saturday, however, that match has been deferred.

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