St Pat's miss late chance to leave with Peter McDonald Premiership draw against Mudgee Dragons

The Saints were held scoreless in the second half after carrying a 14-10 lead into the break, as the boot of Jackson Littlejohn and increased intensity in attack from the hosts gave the Dragons the ascendancy.

Pat's controlled the back end of the match and began to apply more pressure over the final 10 minutes, leading to one late push towards the Mudgee try line, but it was to be another close defeat for the blue and white.

It's the second time this season that the Saints have lost to the Dragons by one scoring play (12-8, round five).

The win has Mudgee Dragons at the top of the Group 10 standings while the Saints continue to look for a way inside the competition's top four.

Given the way that Mudgee have marked themselves as a serious contender this season - just one of three sides to lose a single game this year - Saints player-coach Zac Merritt said Saturday's result should still be seen as encouraging for his group.

"We had an opportunity to equal it up with about two minutes to go. There was nothing in it, and there seems to really be nothing between our two teams this year. Fingers crossed we can get into the semis so we can have a third crack at them," he said.

"There's definitely a decent amount of confidence in the team, especially after putting in a performance like the one we did against a team that's only been beaten once, and after coming off the bye as well.

"We know that we've made it harder for ourselves, and we know that we've got to win the majority of our games. The beauty of it is that we've got two byes up our sleeves, but we've got to lift and get the wins in these games over the next month and a half."

St Pat's got themselves out to an early 10-0 lead on the back of tries to Matt Beattie and Blake Fitzpatrick plus a conversion from the former.

The visitors could only keep Mudgee contained for so long before Nathan Orr opened their account in the 22^nd minute with a converted try, and an unconverted try to Littlejohn just over 10 minutes later levelled it up.

It looked set to be an equal affair at half-time before Jackson Vallis got the Saints a crucial try three minutes before the break.

The momentum didn't carry into the new half of football, and it was over the first 20 minutes of the new period that the Dragons effectively won the match.

Tries to Hudson Brown and Charlie Clayton before the hour mark gave the Dragons a six point lead that they would be able to hold for the remainder of the match, despite a valiant late resurgence from Pat's.

It continues what's been a frustrating season for the Saints, who have looked dominant across several moments this year while missing out on three potential wins (their two to Mudgee along with a draw against Bathurst Panthers).

Merritt said a couple of slip ups at unfortunate moments was all it took to get the Dragons back into the second half of Saturday's game.

"I think we just had a couple of errors and you can't do that against Mudgee, giving repeat set after repeat set. We did have an opportunity after they knocked it on and we had to put the ball down under the posts to draw it but we just couldn't seal it," he said.

"It comes back to us not being able to seal the deal, pretty much. It was the same story against Panthers. We need to know how to seal the result when the opportunity is there to take it.

"We weren't able to score in the second half and that was mostly thanks to Jackson Littlejohn's kicking game, which kept them in it. I've got to praise my boys massively though for how they played over the last 10 minutes of the game. They showed a lot of resilience."

Pat's will now return home to face Orange Hawks next round.