Played in slow and windy conditions at Glen Willow Stadium, the Saints were out-enthused across the park by a Dragons side who were still able to keep their attack ticking along at a high tempo.

Pat's were also their own worst enemies at times as errors cost them several scoring opportunities, and they failed to come away with any points over a forgettable second half of football.

The blue and whites did manage to keep things close at half-time, where Dragons held a 14-8 advantage, but that was as close as the Bathurst men would get for the rest of the match.

Saints captain-coach Zac Merritt said it was another game where great patches of football were overshadowed by poor ones.

"At half-time it was still close but Mudgee were clinical. They really turned up to play. They probably caught us a little off guard and we might have taken them for granted after we beat them at Orange the other week," he said.

"It was a great, solid battle through the middle over the first half. We were right in the game. Late in the second half we got a little fatigued and that's when they took their score up to 30.

"It's not ideal but it's the same as every other week - back to the drawing board looking to get things clicking before semis."

The story of the game was the Saints being unable to take advantage of a sin-binned Dragons player during the second half.

Pat's couldn't capitalise and instead watched the hosts put on another 16 unanswered points as their fitness and enthusiasm on the ball earned them success.

Merritt said bringing more of the first half energy from Saturday's game into future matches is what the Saints should be aiming to emulate.

"Both teams came ready to play. There's no excuses, both teams played great footy. It was late in the second half where they pulled away a bit, and we didn't capitalise on one of their players getting sent for 10," he said.

"It all just caught up to us with too many errors at the back end. We were always playing catch up footy, because they scored straight away, but we were able to hit back. We wanted to avoid the tit for tat scoring but it turned out like the rest of the year."

Merritt gave kudos to the strong performances of Lee McClintock, Luke Single and Jackson Brien in Saturday's game.

Pat's now have the bye, giving them two weeks to prepare for their next clash at home against the Lithgow Workies.

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