The Tigers scored 22 unanswered points in the second half to storm home to defeat the Thunder.

Albury had most of the running in the first half, but Gundagai’s big men started to make their impact in the second stanza.

Vincent Brown, Joel Field and Cameron Woo started to make metres up the middle and Albury couldn’t catch its breath.

Buoyed by a 11-4 penalty count, the Tigers were unstoppable in the second half.

Winger Sivo Makia scored two brilliant tries, one in each half, with his second flying effort almost defying gravity as he swooped on a kick that looked to be sailing over the deadball line to score.

After a see-sawing start to the second half the Tigers scored three times in six minutes to knock the Thunder for six.

Sheer power from winger Phil Latu, who pushed off four defenders to score, started off Gundagai’s comeback in the 55th minute.

Albury gained control of the match in the first half by finding plenty of inroads in the Tigers’ defensive and swooping on simple errors.

New recruit Naseri Naseri dropped two balls which lead to Albury tries, but the premiers couldn’t find the same rhythm in the second half.

Without Levi Freeman to start the match, the Thunder lost enforcer Andrew Cowhan to a shoulder injury and Elijah Tipene during the first half, but coach Ben Jeffery wasn’t using that as an excuse.

“The boys were a bit under the weather, but we still weren’t good enough," he said.

“We still had 13 blokes out there and still should have done the job, but we just didn’t play the way we trained.

“We were poor in the second half, they had all the ball and the penalty count was 12-4 which just isn’t good enough and you can’t give the team the ball for 40 minutes and expect to win the game.”

Gundagai coach Cameron Woo thought his team put in completely difference performances in each half.

“We made things very tough for ourselves in that first half with drop balls and penalties,” Woo said.

“The second half we managed to control the ball and gained some momentum.

“I think it came down to attitude, we seemed to be a bit off in the second half, not diving on balls when we dropped it and not building pressure in our own half and we didn’t come ready to play in the first half but got it together in the second.”

After losing halfback Chris Rose to a broken jaw in round one, the Tigers lost hooker Mark Elphick to an elbow injury early in the first half.

James Luff moved back into dummy half with Derek Hay slotting into the halves to help Gundagai recover.