Saints coach expecting strong response against Marrar on Thursday night

The Saints are coming off back-to-back losses against Temora and Charles Sturt University and Papworth confirmed his side would be looking to hit back strongly against the Bombers.

"Yeah definitely," Papworth said.

"We've fixed up a couple of areas that I think will put us in good stead, we're looking for a pretty competitive response that's for sure."

The Saints and Bombers will do battle under lights at McPherson Oval on Thursday in a Wagga Gold Cup-eve standalone game.

Papworth was looking forward to the clash and was hopeful they would attract a fair crowd to McPherson Oval.

"It'll be great for the club, for the two clubs really to play a standalone fixture," he said.

"It's the first night game for the club and yeah it's exciting.

"It'll be interesting to see what kind of crowd will turn up.

"Obviously it's pretty nice weather at the moment and there should be a few people floating around town with the Gold Cup carnival.

"We'd be hoping we would draw a pretty decent crowd out there."

After opening the season with the bye, the Saints got a solid start to their campaign with a win over Coleambally.

But back-to-back losses now has the Saints sitting at 1-2 and Papworth believed they fell short in a few areas against both the Kangaroos and Bushpigs.

"We probably fell short a bit on our execution," he said.

"We had a really good start and played some of our best footy against Temora in the first quarter, then we just fell away in a couple of areas.

"Then against CSU I thought we had the game on our terms and we were playing quite well, but we just fumbled in a couple of areas that we need to tidy up to get a bit of scoreboard pressure on.

"It just cost us late in that game."

The Bombers enter the clash at 2-2 and are coming in after going down to The Rock-Yerong Creek over the weekend.

Papworth believed the Bombers would provide a huge challenge for his side and noted they'd have to limit their scoring potential in order to be competitive.

"They've been really consistent for a few years now," he said.

"Just across the ground they've got a really good midfield and a good forward set up.

"They've obviously got the potential to score really well, so we've just got to be on our toes and be accountable.

"We'll probably just try and shut down their run a little bit and their scoring potential, just keep our pressure game up and try and get our hands on the football first.

"First use is probably going to be pretty important on Thursday night I'd imagine."

The Saints will train on Tuesday night ahead of the game on Thursday and Papworth didn't imagine they'd be making too many changes to their side.

"We should be pretty consistent," he said.

"We've got a couple of blokes that are back available, Jackson Nejman was a late out last Saturday and Josh Thompson was away.

"Both those boys will be up for selection which puts us in good stead."