Connor Slattery claims five wicket and half century for St Pat's Old Boys against Centrals

The Saints' all-rounder produced the rare effort of a half century and a five wicket haul in the same game during the Saints' seven wicket success at the Orange venue, becoming the first player this season in the BOIDC competition to achieve the feat.

Slattery actually came close to achieving the five wicket haul and half century double during the game against ORC earlier this season (3-20 and 59 not out).

In his latest effort Slattery (77 not out) joined forces with Bailey Brien (26 not out) to take the Saints all the way from 3-42 to 3-151 in a match-winning fourth wicket partnership of 109 runs.

Earlier in the day Angus Norton (44) top scored for the Centrals before the lower order fell apart, with the men in red at one stage losing four wickets without adding a run when the score sat on 135.

Slattery was the man mainly responsible for that lower order stumble as he finished his eight overs with 5-22.

Mitch Taylor (3-22 from 7.3 overs) was the other Saints bowler to have a big day out.

Slattery said there was great satisfaction in putting together a day where both the bat and the ball were on song.

"It feels real good. After not living up to potential it's nice to get things going at both ends," he said.

"I felt like it was a matter over time because I've been batting pretty well. Bowling has been something that I'm still trying to figure out but the bat has definitely felt good so far. Hopefully I can keep going with that and finish the year strong."

It's Slattery's second half century of the season after his unbeaten 59 in the opening round.

Slattery said the Wade Park deck was offered a little more conduciveness for spin on Saturday than it has done in the past.

"It was a pretty good wicket to bat on and I got a few balls to turn, so that was good," he said.

"Normally it doesn't play so well for spin. Normally it's just a pretty good deck to bat on but I think in this game it had a bit of tackiness in it, possibly a bit of moisture that might have helped with that.

"It was really good to get those losses out of the way and get back to our winning ways. We've started the back end really well so far so hopefully we can keep that going."

The win has catapulted the Saints up to second in the BOIDC minor premiership race.

They sit on 33 points, narrowly ahead of Rugby Union (33) and ORC (32).

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