A frustrated Willie Mason blasted his team-mates for their ill-discipline and errors as an in-form South Sydney outfit carved up Newcastle 34-14 at the Olympic stadium on Sunday afternoon.
The Rabbitohs moved into fourth spot on the ladder with their 10th win of the season, a six-tries-to-three attacking masterclass that was built on the back of a 22-10 half-time advantage.
Mason told Grandstand that while the inexperienced Knights gave it a good shot, they gifted Souths with far too many chances to score - chances that the Bunnies took with gusto.
"We've got a young side, inexperienced, and we were in it at the end there with 20 minutes to go," he said.
"But a couple of tries, ill discipline, dropping balls ... you can't give a side like that the opportunity because they're probably one of the best attacking sides in the comp."
South Sydney rookie Adam Reynolds continued to show why he could be the man to steer the Rabbitohs back to the finals after engineering the victory a year after being denied a finals berth by the Knights in round 26.
Reynolds was at the heart of most attacking raids, his short kicking game leading directly to two tries while a third try assist was butchered when Luke Burgess dropped a pass with the line wide open.
Dropped New South Wales winger Akuila Uate scored a double for the Knights, but he would have been disappointed with his afternoon's work.
With his side trailing by three converted tries midway through the second period, Uate virtually sealed his side's fate when he was stripped cold of the ball by Chris McQueen after cleaning up an innocuous grubber in his in-goal.
His day at least ended better than that of team-mate Kyle O'Donnell, the younger brother of former Test back-rower Luke O'Donnell having his debut stopped after just nine minutes thanks to a legal but vicious Sam Burgess shoulder charge.
The Bunnies did not take long to take control, Reynolds' kicking game and some crisp passing up the middle of the ruck leaving the Knights' defence backpedalling.
Dylan Farrell scored after just seven minutes thanks to a Dave Taylor flick pass, before John Sutton and Andrew Everingham sandwiched tries off Reynolds kicks around Uate's first four-pointer.
Mason said poor defence was Newcastle's biggest enemy on the afternoon.
"Our wrestle was awful," he admitted.
"They just kept finding the front. We didn't find the ascendancy in the ruck, they were just getting on their front, they were running from dummy half, flick passes out their arse, just everything.
"It was frustrating to play because our effort is there but we just couldn't get it."
Both sides scored again to give the Rabbitohs a 22-10 lead at the break before a neat short side play when a deep backline was set out to the left resulted in Nathan Peats going over virtually untouched down the right edge.
The Knights had put together back-to-back wins before arriving at Homebush on Sunday, an effort that made Mason think Wayne Bennett's men could beat the Bunnies.
"I did, and we did, we've had a great two weeks and we've come down here to win the game," he said.
"It was just disappointing that we went out like this.
"So [it's] back on the bus, back to think about next week straight away."
Rabbitohs: 34 (D Farrell, J Sutton, A Everingham, I Luke, N Peats, C McQueen tries; A Reynolds 5/6 conversions)
Knights: 14 (A Uate 2, C Houston tries; T Roberts 1/3 conversions)
ABC/AAP
Tags: nrl, rugby-league, sport, sydney-2000, redfern-2016, newcastle-2300, nsw, australia First posted July 08, 2012 15:59:46