AN ERROR-riddled Albury Thunder wasted a golden opportunity to climb into the top-three when it went down to Tumut 18-8 at Greenfield Park on Sunday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Despite dominating possession at different stages of the match, Thunder's poor completion rate came back to haunt them against one of the premier teams in the group.
The Border side has improved on last year but the jury remains out on whether it can match the competition's heavyweights after losing to Tumut and Southcity and drawing Gundagai.
Coach Adrian Purtell said it was a frustrating performance.
"Our ball control was really poor," Purtell said.
"It has been for a few weeks now.
"If you give away that much footy, it's going to hurt you.
"We just made things too hard for ourselves."
Thunder opened the scoring through winger Keanau Wighton at the eight-minute-mark before Tumut struck back through Ben Roddy to give the Blues a 6-4 lead after 25 minutes.
Lachie Bristow followed up soon after and, when the visitors were awarded a penalty just before half-time, the warning bells were ringing at 12-4.
Curtly Jenkinson provided Thunder with some hope when he crossed the line out wide at the 55-minute-mark and the home side continued to attack.
Eventually poor ball handling, some dour Tumut defence and Brad Nicholson being sin-binned with 15 minutes remaining proved too much.
Thunder had chances until the dying minutes before the damaging Bristow iced the game with two minutes left on the clock.
"I felt confident even towards the end we were going to get it but a few errors and penalties gave them field position," he said.
"It was a disappointing result."
Joe Lumb, Brad Hill and Purtell played well for Thunder.
They take on winless Cootamundra at Les Boyd Oval next weekend.
In other matches, ladder leader Gundagai smashed Temora 58-14.
Luke Berkrey led the onslaught with two tries while James Luff capped off a strong performance with nine goals.
Brothers proved too strong for Cootamundra, winning 58-12 and Southcity defeated Young 42-30.
Junee edged out Kangaroos 20-14 on Saturday.