Adam Reynolds has accepted much of the blame for South Sydney's attacking slump and claims a lingering back injury is not hampering his output.
The Rabbitohs slipped from the top four after being held try-less in a shock defeat to 13th-placed Canterbury-Bankstown last round to mark three straight losses.
As the side's chief playmaker, halfback Reynolds assumed the responsibility for the impotent offensive display and denied ongoing back spasms are stifling his impact.
"It's my job to get those things right [in attack] and it just wasn't good enough on the weekend," Reynolds told NRL.com.
"I felt fine. There's no excuses - it was just not a great performance from myself and those things can happen.
"The back's alright, it's slowly improving. It's getting better every day. I've had it in the past but it sort of just flares up with different workloads."
While the spasms weren't aided by the back fracture he suffered in June, Reynolds said the problem has been under control aside from a minor setback in the round 21 loss to Melbourne when he left the field early due to pain.
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"The physios have done a tremendous job with it. I obviously had that hiccup the other week but prior to that obviously a fracture in the back doesn't help," he said.
The error-riddled display against the Bulldogs led coach Wayne Bennett to declare the diagnosis for his team's season is approaching "terminal"; something Reynolds didn't dispute.
"It's a reflection that's probably granted if we keep losing. You don't want to head into the finals with five losses. Especially when you're not playing well - if you're playing well and losing it's understandable," Reynolds said.
"We simply didn't respect the ball, we tried to win the game the easy way. It's not what you do these days in the competition.
"We're professional athletes and we seem to over-complicate things at times. Rugby league's a simple game and we've just got to run hard and tackle hard."
Five-eighth Cody Walker insisted he feels mentally fresh despite a roller-coaster campaign, having started on fire to earn a NSW debut before being dropped for State of Origin II and enduring a mixed back-end of the season.
"It's obviously been a big year on and off the field with Origin and those sort of things," Walker said.
"I'm in a good head-space. It was obviously disappointing on the weekend with the result.
"The most disappointing thing was the way we played against Melbourne - we were really pleased with how we played even though we didn't get the win - so to turn around and play like we did against the Bulldogs was quite disappointing."
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Walker believes key injuries and suspensions have contributed to South Sydney's slide but is confident they can overcome the adversity.
"Just the personnel we've had over the last 10 weeks has been pretty different but that's no excuse as well," he said.
"We had a very honest review on Monday and put the Bulldogs game to bed. We came in today and had a great training session and we're ready for a big game this Friday night."
Sam Burgess (quad) will push to face former mentor Anthony Seibold's Broncos at Suncorp Stadium, while Braidon Burns (hamstring, four weeks) and Tom Burgess (MCL sprain, two to four weeks) are set for extended stints out.
