Times have changed at St George Illawarra - which is just as well according to hooker Dean Young, who concedes Dragons sides of recent years may not have been able to handle a setback like back-to-back losses.

The Dragons head to ANZ Stadium on Saturday night to take on struggling South Sydney determined to prove their NRL premiership campaign hasn't gone off the rails.

Consecutive losses to Canberra and Brisbane have some critics believing the red and whites are fading as they struggle to cope with the pressures of premiership favouritism - something the Dragons did in 2005 and 2006 when many tipped them to take the title.

Young admits the club may not have handled adversity all that well in the past but, under the direction of veteran mentor Wayne Bennett, he believes the resolve could not be stronger.

"I've been at the club for a while - after a couple of losses sometimes you can see the finger pointing and the blaming and everyone starts to get too serious," Young said.

"But it definitely hasn't happened this time.

"Everyone's just worried about themselves. Obviously there's improvement for everyone and that's what we've been concentrating on.

"If you start doing finger-pointing, that it's someone else's fault, that's when you've got real dramas and we definitely don't have that here."

Still, expectations are high for a Dragons side which has lost only six games all year.

"I think the boys feel pressure that they don't want to let any of their teammates down and I think that's a good thing," Young said.

"I don't think we're too worried about what the media say or what ex-players say ... we just don't want to let each other down."

The Dragons' biggest struggles in their two losses have come at the attacking end, having scored just one try in their last two hours of football.

Much of their training this week focused on work with ball in hand and, if Friday's session is any guide, young Rabbitohs halfback Chris Sandow can expect plenty of traffic his way.

The Dragons were working to target his deficiencies in defence, Sandow with an NRL-leading 140 missed tackles in 2009.

Despite the obvious play, Young said the Dragons were more focused on their own game-plan than worrying about what the Bunnies would throw up as he admitted the team may have paid a price for their good mid-season form.

"I just think sometimes we're playing off the cuff too much and maybe that's because we've got a lot of confidence ... we've just got to get back to the plan and we know that works," Young said.

"We're not too worried about it because earlier in the year everyone was saying how bad our attack was but we've got the best for and against in the comp."

Matt Cooper (heel) and Neville Costigan (hip) trained strongly on Friday to remove any doubt over their availability, with Chase Stanley, Jon Green and Jason Nightingale to drop off the extended bench.

Souths, who are out of finals contention, are expected to run out as per program.

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