Possible Clues:

• Now or never
• Stitch lad up in final defence
• Final, desperate way to stop youth with desire
• Desperate to survive desert
• Now or never (effort)
• To survive, abandon such desperate resistance?
• (Of attempt) final and desperate
• So desperately defensive, but child's tat gets sorted
• This can't be in 32 across, and that's final
• Least suitable trench in which to build a stand