Temora hammers Albury Thunder 44-12 in Group Nine rugby league

Former NRL player Josh McCrone was the puppeteer for the Dragons as they racked up eight tries to two in the 44-12 demolition.

"We probably lacked a bit of that (direction), understanding where we need to be on the field, building pressure off the back of our kicks and getting up the right end of the field," sidelined Thunder coach Adrian Purtell indicated.

"He's a high quality player who's played at the highest level, so you would expect that from him."

The 34-year-old halfback controlled play superbly, delivering short passes which created space to break the defensive line or throwing longer passes to cause confusion out wide.

The visitors started with a wonderful 50m try in the third minute.

The Dragons grubbered the ball through the line and before replacement fullback Ty Fletcher could get to the bouncing ball, livewire James Stewart swooped and kicked the ball again before picking it up at full speed to score.

And McCrone made it 10-0 after as many minutes when he popped a lovely short ball to the flying Billy Reardon, the son of former Canterbury premiership player Steve, who drew Fletcher to hand Jock Ward a try under the posts.

The Dragons were clearly a more potent attacking outfit, while the Thunder was clunky.

However, a dropped ball by Stewart on the halfway line allowed Thunder's James Olds, who had swapped with Fletcher to play in the centres, to toe the ball ahead and get the ideal bounce to race away and score.

Temora had started to make a handful of errors and the home team was gaining some momentum, but that was robbed when halfback Robbie Byatt threw a long pass 30m out from his own try line to get outside the compressed defence and Ward intercepted the pass to sprint away.

McCrone then popped a short ball to a flying team-mate, who did well to retain possession and score to make it 22-6 at half-time.

Thunder forward Blake Grounds scored a nice try early in the second half, but the Dragons poured on the points in the final minutes.

"I think for that one the most disappointing thing was there was so much on the line, we were around Temora on the table and if we had won that one we would have given ourselves a slight chance," Purtell offered.

"We've just got to find a way to enjoy the rest of the year."

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Jeremy Wiscombe was the standout and when he went into dummy-half, gaps appeared, while five-eighth Mason Fuller tried hard.

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