Hotspurs have now won four of their last five games and are building nicely towards finals, but it's now more than four months since the Patties tasted victory.

Two penalties from Hopwood sandwiched a delightful second goal which he bent into the top corner after a neat turn on the edge of the box.

"It was pretty lucky," he laughed. "I usually send those into the car park.

"No, as soon as I hit it, it did feel nice.

"It was Eggy's goal (the third one), he deserved to do it but someone else said I was on a hat-trick so I'm very appreciative that he gave it to me.

"You always want to hit finals when you're feeling pretty good.

"We made a slow start but we're not going to doubt ourselves, we'll have a crack and give ourselves every chance."

St Pats had the better of a low-key first half, Andrew Stevens forcing two good saves from Zachery Bonetti before the opening goal arrived on 34 minutes.

Ben White swung over a deep corner from the right and Anthony O'Farrell rose highest to score with a crashing header.

It was almost 2-0 when Carlos Hassan collected Stevens' pass and turned his man inside-out, although the diminutive forward leaned back and sent his shot over the bar.

White embarked on a driving run at the start of the second half and brought another save from Bonetti but the game turned just after the hour.

Michael Morley fouled Mitchell Aitken in the box and Hopwood sent Joshua Green the wrong way from the spot.

St Pats dropped their heads after Hopwood's stunning second and it was no surprise when Aitken got on the end of Jacob Schreiber's deep cross to make it 3-1 soon after.

Harrison Heath drilled a low shot across the face of goal and Aitken rattled the crossbar when Patties failed to cut out another good Schreiber delivery from wide.

Hopwood completed his treble in added time after Eggleston had been sent tumbling by the on-rushing Green.

"It's disappointing," St Pats coach Javi Martinez said.

"We had the game in our control but we went away from what we were doing in the first half and allowed them to have more space.

"They found their rhythm and it was hard to reel them back in.

"As good as Hotspurs have been of late, you can't afford to take your foot off their neck but we did and they took full advantage."

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Martinez, though, insisted there was no issue with self-belief despite the long winless run.

"You can understand taking over a team that's finished literally last for the last five or six years," he said.

"We lost a lot of players and we didn't gain any players but we've already accumulated more goals and more points than we did in any other season during that period."

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