Winless since round six, the Thunder also sacked captain-coach during a run of four straight losses, but found a way to stem the tide on Saturday.

New coach Josh Cale was pleased to get another win on the board against Tumbarumba at Greenfield Park.

After a tight first half, Albury asserted their dominance to score 20 straight points on the way to a 30-16 win.

Still believing there is plenty of room for improvement, Cale thought it was an important step for the fifth placed side.

“Obviously four losses on the trot isn’t real fun so we just had to win and we got there,” Cale said. 

“I thought we got into the arm wrestle really well and both sides did a pretty big job in the first half.

“In the last 20 minutes we probably let ourselves down and made a lot of errors ... but after the last four weeks it was just good to get a win.”

Levi Freeman impressed at five-eighth.