South Sydney 12  St George Illawarra 26

ST George Illawarra players have not exactly been barred from using the "f" word, but if one of them were to break ranks and utter it he would be howled down by the rest. As far as the players are concerned, any revolution that may be going on in Dragons country is a quiet one - and they would prefer to keep it that way.

Yesterday's win over South Sydney was the team's third in a row and fourth in their past five games. It lifted them three places to ninth on the competition table. But, when asked if the Dragons had begun talking about the possibility of making the finals, halfback Ben Hornby was adamant it had not been a topic of conversation.

"No, no," Hornby said. "It's a cliche, I know, but we're just worried about next week now. Getting up for next week."

St George Illawarra won only one of their first six games. They have since improved their win-loss record to 5-6, but Hornby says that if they make the mistake of trying to look into the future they will only ruin the present.

"We haven't talked about it, because we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves," Hornby said. "We haven't had to say 'don't talk about it', because no one has brought it up. We're not even in the top eight at this stage. If we start talking about the future and maybe making the finals, we'll just make things difficult for ourselves. We came here today just really wanting to beat Souths, so we'll stick to what we've been doing and get ready for next week now."

Dragons coach Nathan Brown was also using the one-week-at-a-time line. It's the sensible way to go for St George Illawarra, because they are the sort of club that easily attracts attention, and if they were to start predicting they would shake things up in the finals they would just be drawing a harsh spotlight to themselves. Plus, there is still a long way to go and a lot of work to do.

The impressive thing about their win over the Rabbitohs was that once St George Illawarra had gained control of the match, they never looked like giving it up. They trailed 6-0, turned that around to lead 12-6 at half-time and then put the foot firmly on the throat when second-rower Ben Creagh pushed his way over from close range, despite the attention of four tacklers, for a 47th-minute try.

Five-eighth Jamie Soward's conversion made it 18-6 and Souths did not come up with their second try until the Dragons had finished scoring.

That second try from the Rabbitohs, in the final minute, was a spectacular one, with the ball going quickly through many sets of hands from the centre of the field to the right and then back to the centre, before winger Luke Capewell dashed away to score on the left. But the fact it came after the Dragons had scored 26 straight points to wrap up the game meant it was of little consolation.

After the well-documented, tumultuous week that Souths had been through, with dramatic changes in management, Souths stalwart George Piggins describing the Rabbitohs as a club in crisis and calling for them to move to Gosford, and the player who had been their prized recruit for next season - Penrith star Luke Lewis - turning his back on them, it was reasonable to think it might be time for something good to happen to them.

But, instead, they suffered a timekeeping stuff-up when the button to sound the half-time siren was pushed one minute early. Souths had just begun a set close to the St George Illawarra line, with time to use all six tackles to try to score a try, but when the siren went off early they had to bomb straight away and it was defused.

Rabbitohs coach Jason Taylor described it as an "astronomical error", adding: "It changes the whole game. [It was] embarrassing, I think."

It would have been much kinder of the timekeeper on Souths and their fans to have blown the full-time siren early - say, with about 15 minutes to go, since it was clear by then that there was no chance of the Rabbitohs running the Dragons down.

Souths prop and captain Roy Asotasi made it clear where he thought the match was won and lost, when he said: "I think we just got outplayed by their bigger guys getting over our forwards. Their big forwards were pretty much running all over us. We need to go back to the drawing board."