Wayne Bennett has been left frustrated at his side's defensive issues after South Sydney's massive 60-22 victory over the New Zealand Warriors.
The Rabbitohs were at their attacking best on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday afternoon.
They ran in 11 tries to the Warriors four as they stamped their Premiership credentials yet again in a free-flowing display.
Yet, Bennett was left disappointed by his side's effort on the defensive side.
Considering the Warriors' struggles in attack, Bennett knows that letting in four tries the way they did is not something they can repeat against other Premiership contenders.
Souths also had 26 missed tackles for the afternoon. The Warriors had 46.
As a result, Bennett gave his side's performance a "6 out of 10".
"It’s not the numbers that are a concern, it’s the way we give up soft tries that is a concern," Bennett said in his post-match press conference.
He also felt that the improvement in the competition in recent weeks could leave his side behind if they don't tidy up their defensive issues.
"What I saw on Thursday night and again last night, I saw that teams were in a different state of mind that comes at this period," Bennett said.
"When everything is behind you, you can see the season’s end. The quality of football in the last two or three days has been pretty high in my opinion.
"Teams that hadn’t aimed up certainly aimed up in the last couple of games. I saw a bit of it last weekend and I think it’ll only get better in the next six weeks.
"There’s six weeks to go after today. That’s our challenge, to have six more weeks of this competition.
"To play two or three of the top four teams in that period of time as well, we’ll have a pretty good handle on ourselves as the season comes to its inclusion."
How did he offload that?!
— NRL (@NRL) July 24, 2021
Trell is something else 🤯🤯#NRLSouthsWarriors #TelstraPremiership pic.twitter.com/eXQTJTge4R
Bennett again will be forced to sweat on the fitness of some of his high-profile players. Campbell Graham was ruled out during the week while Alex Johnston was injured last weekend.
Against the Warriors, it was his star halves who came under an injury cloud.
Adam Reynolds came off early with a hamstring issue, while Cody Walker played through the game with a knee injury.
By Bennett's assessment, it appears Reynolds' injury is the one of most concern.
"He didn’t want to come off so I realised he wasn’t too badly injured, it wasn’t life or death," Bennett said on Walker.
"With the scoreboard we didn’t have to keep him on the field but he wanted to stay there. You have to respect that the way he plays if he wanted to do that.
"He (Reynolds) had a twinge in his hamstring at the beginning of the Game and he carried it well in the second half.
"It wasn’t impacting on the way he was playing, he was running and doing all the things he could do.
"We got him off as a precaution, we thought we were lucky to get him through that period of time so we didn’t want to extend our luck any further."
