Saints played host to Orange CYMS in Sunday's clash at Jack Arrow Sporting Complex, where the blue and whites were always playing catch-up football in a 20-18 defeat.

It was a great game for lovers of defence, since both teams showcased great resilience inside their own 20m, but a couple of Saints errors would prove the difference in a closely-fought clash.

"Coming off the bye, I thought we were a bit flat. I was happy with our defence, although we did leak a couple of soft points there," Saints captain Zac Merritt said.

"We were a bit clunky in attack so there's still a bit to work on there but I'm still really happy with our effort.

"We spoke at half-time about the fact that tries were coming from errors. When the field is like this, all muddied up, you can't come up with errors because teams punish you by turning the ball back on the inside.

"We live and learn and we'll move on to next week."

CYMS broke the deadlock just before seventh minute when Adam Stanford capitalised straight away on a dropped bomb by the Saints, with Addison Williams adding the extras.

Pat's thought they had hit back into the 13^th minute when Tyler Colley dived across the line after great runs from Luke Single and Jackson Brien but they were called back for a forward pass.

CYMS looked to have throttled the Saints' momentum when they survived three straight sets on their own line with 10 minutes left in the half.

It was on the next Pat's trip down to the CYMS' try line that they got the breakthrough, when Jack Mackey busted through the defence from close range courtesy of a short Benji John ball.

The scores looked certain to stay 6-all at the break before a Pat's knock-on gifted CYMS another chance to score, and Jack Nobes seized it to put CYMS up 12-6 at half-time.

Saints had looked the more likely team to score over the first 15 minutes of the new half but it was instead CYMS who got there first when Joe Lasagabivau found a try.

Pat's bounced back straight away, thanks to a CYMS error on the kick-off, as Jacob Parslow finished off a play down the left wing - making it 16-12 after the successful kick.

Once again the Saints became their own worst enemies when a penalty led to more points going against them.

CYMS brought the ball back up the ground and created an overlap on the left edge to put Kaden Williams over the line.

The try-trading trend continued when yet another CYMS kick-off bungle saw Mitch Squire get the game back within two points with a try under the posts.

The Saints' best chance went begging when they went into touch on the right wing just a metre shy of the try line.

CYMS would hold firm over the last 10 minutes for a hard fought success.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: