South Sydney coach Michael Maguire has downplayed his side's efforts in toppling ladder-leaders Manly 23-4 at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday night, knowing his side has been similarly placed in recent years without going on with the job.
He also paid tribute to his new halves combination of Adam Reynolds and Luke Keary – the one he had pencilled in for Round 1 until Keary suffered a long-term pectoral injury in the pre-season Auckland Nines competition.
For the second week in a row the pair were dominant in the absence of regular skipper and five-eighth John Sutton, giving Maguire a welcome headache when Sutton returns from a knee injury in as little as two weeks' time.
"We'll work that out when the time comes; I didn't really think we'd be without John Sutton," Maguire said.
"It gives us a lot of opportunity to look at our game as we move forward. We started at the start of the year with John in the middle and an opportunity to play there [but] unfortunately we probably didn't execute and play the way we are now when we're putting that together.
"When John comes back it gives us a great opportunity to look at different ways we can play but we've also got the ability to put him back into the halves, we'll just see how it goes."
He said the young halves combination had been very good, and the entire spine from fullback to hooker played very well off the back of a forward pack that are hungry and working well together.
"There's a real good feel amongst the players about how they're playing, enjoying what they're doing, and that's the understanding of the game that we've found and we've just got to stay at it," said Maguire as his side eyes a Grand Final appearance more than four decades in the making.
He said the side needs to refocus on carrying that form into their Round 23 match against the Broncos at ANZ Stadium on Thursday night.
"That's another two points for us, now we need to focus on the Broncos. We've been in this position before – now it's really about the next game. That's the biggest key to what we've doing at the moment and how we're going about things."
Stand-in Rabbitohs captain Greg Inglis, who now has a perfect two-from-two record as captain, made mention of the side's failure to capitalise on previous strong seasons.
"It's been spoken about each year that I've been here, 'It's going to be our year', but the belief that I have in these guys – it's pretty much what it has been in the past, we've just been working well together, we've just got to knuckle down and focus on the job at hand with Broncos next week," he said.
Maguire said in-form young forward Kyle Turner, who scored an early try before going off injured with what at first looked to be concussion, actually had an eye complaint but should be available to face the Broncos.
