RUSSELL CROWE stood on the balcony of the owners' box at full-time with his arms raised in triumph, John Sutton hurled the ball into the crowd and punched the air after scoring the match-winning try, and the sight and sound of the Souths players belting out their victory song in a packed dressing room was broadcast on the big screen at ANZ Stadium.

But what best highlighted the significance and emotion of Souths' breakthrough 28-24 victory over North Queensland was the introduction given to coach Jason Taylor by Triple M announcer Anthony Maroon, brother of former Rabbitohs forward Darren Maroon, at the post-match function for the club's members and season ticket holders.

"This guy is the best coach we've had since Jack Gibson," Maroon told an audience who had been singing Glory, Glory to South Sydney as passionately as they did after all seven of the Rabbitohs' consecutive losses and back in the glory days of the 1960s and '70s.

Souths may have been struggling this season but no one at the club ever gave up hope.

And, least of all Taylor.

"Before this match we wrote up on a board how many games we needed to win to make the semis," Taylor revealed. "I know a lot of people would be thinking we hadn't even won a game so how could we be thinking about the semis but I thought that we played well last week against the Broncos, and they beat the Tigers comfortably last night in a similar sort of game, so that gave me confidence.

"One of the things I put up on the board was that we had to win today. If we could do that and then take the bye next week, we've got four points and then we broke up the remainder of the competition so we want to win three of our next four, four of the next five after that and so on. It's tough but I believe we're good enough."

Right up until full-time yesterday, Taylor admitted he was on edge - and he wasn't the only one.

Having pumped his fist in a victory salute when the cameras caught him after Sutton's 68th-minute try put Souths ahead 28-18, Crowe looked slightly nervous when he was again shown on the big screen, this time with his arms folded, following John Williams's response four minutes later for the Cowboys.

After arriving only yesterday from the United States, where he had been making his latest film, Crowe missed the opening 22 minutes of the match and was just taking his seat as centre Beau Champion crossed for the second of his two tries to help level the scores at 12-all.

The Oscar winner surprised the Rabbitohs players when he turned up in their dressing room at half-time but Crowe did not say anything to them until he returned to celebrate with them after the match.

"The good thing about Russell and Peter Holmes a Court is they let Jason do his job," back-rower David Kidwell said. "Afterwards he came down to say well done, and hopefully it'll kick-start our season. He shook everyone's hand and said well done."

When it was suggested that Crowe was Souths' lucky charm, Kidwell said: "Take it how you want, mate. We'll take any lucky charms at the moment."

Taylor added: "Things just started to fall into place this week, and when I heard that Russell was going to be at the game … he's that sort of bloke."

Also in the dressing room at full-time was every member of Souths' full-time squad, including the four players who were dumped to premier league last week for breaching the club's alcohol policy, and injured stars Craig Wing, Michael Greenfield and Scott Geddes.

"The 17 players who played the game got back in the dressing room, and all of our players who are in line for first-grade selection every week and are in our full-time squad were in there waiting for them to shake their hands and clap them off the field," Taylor said. "It's a great feeling what we've got. I'm excited about where we can get ourselves to as a team."

And while he may not yet be in the same class as Gibson, who was last month named coach of the Team of the Century, Taylor said he had learnt from what has been the toughest period of his two years in the role.

"I'm a better coach now, I'm sure of that, than I was before we went through this, and it's really helped me narrow my focus and understand what it takes to win games when the pressure is really on," he said. "It's been a bit of a roller-coaster as far as my mood goes … but you've got to stay positive, you've got to keep working at it. They're the lessons I learnt as a player, and I'm really trying hard to apply them."

Captain Roy Asotasi said: "It's been a long seven weeks but we've learnt a lot of things along the way, and today is just the start."

WHAT THEY SAID

'I believe John Sutton would be great for State of Origin, because of his versatility. He's been great for us all year and he was great for City against Country on Friday night.' SHANE RICHARDSON

'It showed what we were made of, as a club. Some [players] have made errors and fallen by the wayside, while others have gone forward. It's been a great test for us, but it's not over.' JASON TAYLOR

'I'm very happy with the way we played. We've been down in the dumps, so it's a weight off the shoulders. It was tough losing seven in a row, but we kept turning up and putting the hard yards in and got a win.' JOHN SUTTON

'It's been very hard, but we learned a lot of things about ourselves along the way. We're just relieved to finally get a win. Now we have to get back into the swing of things and, hopefully, keep it going.' ROY ASOTASI