AFTER experiencing his first defeat in the NRL, boom South Sydney halfback Chris Sandow put up his hand to accept some of the responsibility before predicting with the same confidence he has displayed on the field that the Rabbitohs would return to the winners' circle on Sunday in Newcastle.

While Rabbitohs captain Roy Asotasi suggested some of his teammates had been a "bit loose" at training and may have been "going through the motions" after their run of five consecutive wins since Sandow made his debut, the 19-year-old Gold Coast product said it simply wasn't their day against the Wests Tigers.

"We've just been taking each game as it comes and if we win, we win and if we lose, we lose," he said. "You can't blame anyone, it's all our fault but we'll bounce back next week. Basically, if our forwards go forward we get on a roll from there but we didn't today. We had a few mistakes in that first half and we just went pretty bad from there."

However, Sandow conceded he hadn't provided the same direction for his forwards as in previous weeks and would attempt to do more talking against the Knights.

"The forwards weren't on top this week so that made it harder for the backs but I pretty much didn't stick to my job," he said. "I didn't order them around as much as in the last couple of weeks but I'm still working on my game. I'm still a pup."

Sandow, who has had a dream run since being thrust into first grade after the Rabbitohs crashed to their 10th loss in 11 matches against St George Illawarra on June 7, was responsible for one of the early errors catalogued after the match by Souths coach Jason Taylor when he failed to find touch from a seventh-minute penalty.

Tigers winger Taniela Tuiaki scored two minutes later from a Benji Marshall grubber and the Rabbitohs were again forced to come from behind but after doing so in the past five matches they were this time unable to.

"I think as the game wore on we looked like we weren't there in a few areas but it sort of just led to that through a few silly errors," Taylor said. "They're just concentration things, which is really disappointing. The effort from the start was pretty good but things started to go against us; Benji Marshall takes a tap 10 metres out from his own line and nobody is looking and he runs 50 metres. We fed the scrum one time and they dived on the ball - not us. There was just some really simple things that were just really disappointing from us today."

Asked whether the hype surrounding the Rabbitohs' winning run had effected the players, Asotasi said: "Maybe, it felt like during the week that we might have been a bit loose and it might have just got to a few of us.

"I just think we were just going through the motions out there. Maybe we just thought we could rock up and walk all over the Tigers but they were a side that was committed and desperate. We were desperate, too, but we just didn't show it out there. But today's game knocked us back to earth so we've just got to make sure we learn a lot of lessons from today and we're ready against the Knights."