Skipper Jamie Lyon knows his side will need to improve if the Sea Eagles are to have any chance of causing an upset against the Rabbitohs on Friday night.
The Bunnies climbed above the Roosters as premiership favourites after Thursday’s victory over their traditional rivals.
However, the Sea Eagles, despite losing their two regular season fixtures against Souths last season, will carry plenty of confidence having overcome Michael Maguire’s men in their most recent preliminary final clash almost six months ago.
Captain Lyon has vowed that there won’t be a repeat of last week’s second half performance, in which they leaked in 22-answered points to ultimately lose their season opener against Melbourne.
“It was a pretty poor second half from our standards,” Lyon said. “We’ve just got to move on. We just had a look at some video then, so we’ll turn it around this week and hopefully put in a good performance.
“We obviously had a few drop balls and I don’t think our defence was as strong as we would usually like, so that’s probably the two biggest things. We’ll fix that up this week.
“The Rabbitohs are obviously playing some good footy to knock off the Roosters like that. It was a great effort, so we’re going to have to improve quite a lot this week.
“They’ve got a big pack that is pretty strong and mobile, so we are just going to have to be on our game. Defence has got to be a bit better and it will be, so we’re looking forward to it and I’m sure it’s going to be a tough game.”
