South Sydney centre Matt King admits the Rabbitohs have some work to do to recapture their attacking prowess after scoring just two tries in the past two games.
The Rabbitohs were beaten 20-7 by Cronulla on Saturday night with Sam Burgess scoring the only try for Souths in the clash at Toyota Stadium.
It was third-placed Souths second consecutive loss after falling 23-6 to Manly with Burgess again the only tryscorer for the Rabbitohs.
Even the return from suspension of superstar fullback Greg Inglis on Saturday was unable to spark the Rabbitohs who squandered plenty of opportunities against a resilient Cronulla defence.
Boasting tryscoring machines like Andrew Everingham and Nathan Merritt (26 tries between them this season), the Rabbitohs have the fourth best attack in the competition, but you wouldn’t know it watching them in the past fortnight.
Prior to their two losses, Souths won six-straight games, clocking up some big scores.
“Our attack didn’t really click for us against Manly last week either. I think we’re giving away a bit of cheap ball and not really getting ourselves into positions where we can put our plays on,” King said.
“We probably need to look at getting our attack in order.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a confidence thing or anything like that. We are just going away from the type of footy we know we can play which is quite disappointing.”
Coach Michael Maguire said there were some issues to work on for the Rabbitohs in attack.
“We probably weren’t as fluid as we have been in the past and they’re the things that we’ll take out of this game,” Maguire said.
“We know what we are capable of, it’s just a matter of doing that next week.”
Souths play struggling Parramatta next week before taking on Newcastle ahead of the finals.
“It’s one thing since I came back from England and that is this is a tough old comp. It doesn’t matter who you play against, if you take anybody lightly in this comp you are going to get your pants pulled down,” King said.
“We’ve just come off two losses, so if we take Parramatta lightly there will be some boys in reserve grade.”
