Orange Hawks' rookie Mitch Watts scores at the death in Group 10 victory

The young flier scored on the last play of the game at Jack Arrow Oval on Sunday, securing Hawks a 20-18 victory over a dogged St Pat's outfit.

It's the second time this season St Pat's has let a lead slip late, and it's anchoring them to fifth on the Group 10 premier league ladder.

Saints had improved over the second half of play to overcome a 12-6 half-time deficit and put themselves on the verge of a scrappy success but the Hawks gave them flashbacks of their defeat to Mudgee Dragons earlier this season by spoiling the fun in the dying stages.

Hawks coach Willie Heta said his team could count themselves very lucky to be returning to Orange with the points, a game that also doubled as former NRL gun Chris Grevsmuhl's debut in blue.

"Honestly, they deserved that win. In the last 40 minutes they played all over the top of us but we were resilient and we hung in there and managed to sneak it at the end," he said.

"That's really been the story of our season. We've been struggling to find consistency and rhythm in our game, especially with COVID coming in and forcing Lithgow up and down, so we're just happy to take the two points against a team like that.

"The change of angles definitely had the big boys working on their feet, and had them slipping here and there, but hopefully this is the start of some consistency for us which we can carry into the back end of the season."

Saints started flat and Hawks were happy to take advantage of that, opening the scoring through a Mitch Watts try.

Hawks continued to roll strongly through the middle and pushed the lead out to 12-0 thanks to Grevsmuhl.

Just as it looked like the Hawks momentum would continue uninterrupted the Saints managed to find their breakthrough against the run of play with a Benji John try.

John had helped inject a bit of spark into the hosts' attack after he came off the bench, and that drive in attack carried into the early stages of the new half.

Pat's skipper Zac Merritt weaved through several defenders to score next to the uprights and level the game at 12-all.

But Pat's were once again their own worst enemies, gifting the Hawks a repeat set on their own try line, which the visitors took full advantage of through Duncan Young for a 16-12 lead.

A big turning point in the game arrived in the 55th minute when Hawks halfback Toby Westcott was sin binned for slowing down the play-the-ball.

Saints capitalised on the numbers advantage when Hudson White crashed over from close range, and Joey Coughlan's extras gave the Bathurst men the lead for the first time.

Both sides struggled to keep a hold of the ball in the last 10 minutes as the fatigue really began to show on the slow Jack Arrow turf.

Another Saints error inside the final minute gave Hawks one last chance to pinch the victory - and a perfect kick would deliver it to them.

Watts jumped on the end of a bouncing ball which was kicked to the left corner post, going across for his second try of the day and sending the visiting Hawks fans and family members into celebration mode.

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