Brothers breathed life into their stuttering season with a 26-10 win over Tumut at Equex Centre on Sunday.
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Hitting back from a 40-point demolition at the hands of Southcity, the Wagga side chalked up their first top five win of the season.
Coach Peter Little labelled it their best performance of the year.
"It was our best 80 minutes," Little said.
"We still have a little bit to work on but 26-10 and no tries in the second half is great defence."
Little scored a first half double to hand his side a 12-10 lead at the break.
He opened the scoring after five minutes before tries to Austin McDougall and Zac Masters had the Blues in front.
Little scored just before the break and it took 21 minutes for the Wagga side to break the deadlock in the second half.
However Brady Collins' try gave Brothers the kick they needed to score just their third win of the season.
Cade Price scored six minutes later before Connor McCauley sealed the win.
Brothers are now just two points behind Temora in the battle for fifth place.
Little thought it was an important win.
"It's massive," he said.
"It puts us two behind Temora and that was our goal.
"We wanted to win these next two to really give ourselves a chance."
Among those to standout was Jordan Little.
The teenager made the surprise move from Southcity during the week but made a big difference in the centres for the Brethren.
"He just wants an opportunity to play first grade and have his own identity," Peter Little said.
"He definitely picked us up at training and was massive for us, especially on that right side in defence as we really struggled on that side.
"His talk was brilliant."
Tumut were playing for top spot last weekend but the tight 16-6 loss to Gundagai coupled with the surprise results over the weekend has them down to fourth.
Co-coach Adam Pearce, who made a brief return from an ankle injury before being sin binned late, admitted his side were terrible.
"We didn't turn up and were just flat the whole game," Pearce said.
"I don't know what to put it down to but we had a pretty bad week at training, not many turned up on Tuesday and then it was a pretty flat session on Friday.
"We just didn't play well."
Injuries to co-coach Dean Bristow (hamstring) and fill-in hooker Todd Broad (groin) didn't help their cause.
Pearce is looking to regroup ahead of a clash with Temora at Nixon Park on Sunday while Brothers host an Albury outfit coming off a win against Gundagai.
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