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Maguire fumes as Souths' finals hopes sink

South Sydney coach Michael Maguire finished the season with the sack. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)

South Sydney coach Michael Maguire has turned the blowtorch on his underperforming NRL team.

The Rabbitohs committed 11 of their 15 errors in the second half – most of them in their own half – during their limp 23-10 defeat to North Queensland in Cairns on Sunday.

It was the South Sydney’s 11th loss in their past 14 matches, leaving them in 14th spot and six points out of the top eight with seven games remaining in the season.

A furious Maguire was in no mood to discuss his team’s effort at Barlow Park.

Asked where his men had failed against the Cowboys, Maguire said: “A lot of areas, a lot of areas. We spoke about it in the changeroom and I’m going to leave it there.”

The sixth-year coach then thanked the people of Cairns before pointing the finger at his side, who now need to win a near-impossible six of their remaining finals games.

It will be the second year in a row the Rabbitohs will miss the finals.

“As you can tell, I’m burning about the game because I know what I have in that changeroom and we’re not achieving that at the moment,” he said.

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“The boys need to find a way to find those performances because what we put out there today doesn’t represent us.”

The Cowboys were just as guilty of poor ball security, but it mattered little as they broke the Rabbitohs’ goal line defence at will.

“We let in a few soft tries on our line which at this level is not good enough. The penalty count was 6-1 at one point,” skipper Sam Burgess said.

“In those conditions against a high completing team, it’s going to cost you. We just didn’t defend well enough. On the flipside in the second half, we didn’t hold the ball, so that’s the game right there.”

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