Hayden Bolam stars for St Pat's against CYMS in Peter McDonald Premiership

Saints hooker Hayden Bolam crossed for a hat-trick on Saturday during a 42-12 victory over Orange CYMS in the fifth round of the Peter McDonald Premiership.

Bolam "can't really remember" the last time he bagged three in the same game, but was quick to shone the spotlight on his teammates.

"It's down to my forwards. They lay the platform for me and allow me to do that," he said of his first two tries which saw him tear through the green and gold's defence straight from dummy-half.

Bolam's third four-pointer came from a CYMS error close to their line.

"I got pretty lucky there at the end," he added.

Although St Pat's controlled most of the possession during the first 40 minutes, they only went into the sheds with an eight point lead.

"The first 20 was tough. We knew they would come out pretty hard at home and stick it to us," Bolam said.

"We knew if we weathered the storm that we'd come out on top as long as we played our game and controlled things."

Saints certainly did that in the second half.

The visitors ran in 22 unanswered points during what was an error-filled match for the home team.

"Whether it's wet or dry, we have those errors in us," CYMS captain-coach Ethan McKellar said.

"Unfortunately we can't get them out of our game. If we can hold onto the ball and complete our sets, like we did against Mudgee then I think we can match any side, but we just can't hold the football."

McKellar couldn't point to one single thing that has continually seen his side drop off during the second 40.

"Half-time is our worst enemy," he said.

"We go into the sheds and just seem to clock off and seem to not want to come back out and play football. I don't really know how to change that mindset really."

Despite the tight score-line at half-time, Saints captain-coach Zach Merritt was confident his boys had what it took to get the job done.

"We've got too much class in our team not to do anything good there," he said.

"I watched (CYMS') game last week and they're a reasonable side. They continue to build pressure so we had to be resilient and we were."

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