South Sydney coach Jason Taylor says Saturday's NRL thrashing by the Wests Tigers was his lowest point with the club.

Taylor held a clear-the-air meeting with his players on Tuesday morning before training as the dust settled following the 54-20 mauling by the Tigers.

"It's the lowest the team's been in my time here," Taylor told AAP.

"Regardless of the fact that we lost a heap last year, we were a confident team at the start of this season and would have had nightmares about us getting to that point.

"But we've got there and now we've just got to bounce back from it."

Taylor said his team's defence had been "non-existent" against the Tigers and it was time for his charges to start showing they were capable of playing in the NRL.

But the former NSW Origin halfback said he had been encouraged by his team's response so far.

"At the end of the day what we've been producing hasn't been good enough," Taylor said.

"It starts with our training, we've got to improve it right there and then, that will spill over onto what we do on the field.

"When I say our defence is non-existent, it's there at times and then it just disappears and that's just a concentration thing.

"... You can't just say we've got to concentrate and then it will happen, we've got to do it at training and we've got to work hard at improving it and that's what we've started on today.

"One of the things about it is our training sessions haven't been extremely poor. They've just been a little bit down a couple of times here and there but it's the NRL.

"It's a high standard, so we've got to get it up there."

Taylor's comments were backed up by his captain Roy Asotasi, who said the Rabbitohs were guilty of giving up against the Tigers in a performance he claimed was "unacceptable".

The New Zealand international challenged his teammates to prove their critics wrong in Friday's match against Penrith.

"The performance that we put out on Saturday night was not South Sydney, it wasn't our style and we know that deep down," Asotasi told AAP.

"We knew that we kind of gave up and this is a tough competition and you've really got to step up. It's a game that you play week-in, week-out and you've got to do it 100 per cent.

"Our true colours will show on Friday night, whether we want to be in there or not."

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