Albury fullback James Girdler is just 173cms and 75kgs and relies on his evasive skills to prosper.

"You've just got to roll with it, there's no point running soft when you're a little fella because that's not going to help you out," Girdler said.

"You then do as much as you can to step around them, but if there's a wall in front of you and there's no holes, you've just got to go hard."

Teammates respond to Girdler's courage as he gives away more than 30kgs to some opponents.

The 21-year-old Griffith product has represented Riverina the past two years.

"At that level, I've learnt you have to have plenty of talk in defence, telling them where the play's going to go and try and get numbers either side," he said.

Much of rugby league these days involves structured football, but the lively Girdler is a throwback to an earlier time.

"You've got to have some structure for something to go back to, but definitely 'eyes up' footy is the way to go when you're a little fella like me.

"If you see something, go for it, no matter what the call's been."

Thunder will look to regain confidence as it's coming off the first losses for the season.

Grand finalists Southcity posted a 36-10 thumping, while Tumut proved too strong last week by 10 points.

Mistakes have torpedoed Thunder's hopes of upsets.

"We had a lot of errors," Girdler said.

"You can drop the ball against the sides lower down the ladder (and get away with it), but against the better teams you've got to take your chances.

"The errors are coming from trying a bit too hard and then pushing passes when we haven't earnt the right.

'We're not happy to take the tackle and try and get them on the next set, we're just trying to score from 40-50m out without building any pressure."

Thunder has slipped from second on points differential to fourth and now holds just a one-point break to Junee.

However they now have three winnable games Cootamundra, Young and Kangaroos before hitting the halfway mark of the competition.