He may or may not have been joking, but veteran South Sydney coach John Lang says he considered resigning as his side fell behind 20-0 to St George Illawarra at WIN Stadium on Sunday.

He stayed in the job long enough to be able to declare the Rabbitohs' miracle 34-24 win the best comeback he'd been involved with.

Few would argue after Souths looked like they'd given up on defence and allowed the Dragons to score four tries in the opening 18 minutes.

At 20-0 a cricket score was on the cards, but a Rhys Wesser try late in the first half and five second-half tries - including a hat-trick to Dylan Farrell - for a stunning upset.

"I felt like resigning to be perfectly honest," said Lang, who will retire at the end of the season. "I'm not joking.

"I thought, honestly, if we can't play any better than this it might be time to move on.

"It's probably the best comeback win I've ever been associated with considering the circumstances."

Those circumstances included Souths all but blowing their chances of a finals spot with last week's thrashing by the Warriors and one win from their previous 12 appearances in Wollongong.

"When you start to defend well, that's the biggest thing ... you're a chance of getting the points," Lang said.

"I said before the game we're not going to go down there and win 34-32, we have to defend well.

"I said to my wife this morning, 'I'm on a roll of one at Wollongong'. It took me about 12 years to win down here, now I've won two in a row.

"To come back from 20 points down against a great side ... down here at Wollongong, that's an unbelievably good effort."

The Rabbitohs' first win at WIN since 2007 kept their slim finals chances on life support.

"I'm sick of trying to think about it," Lang said of the play-offs.

"All I know is we won today, we got two points, great comeback effort and we'll prepare and get out and do the best we can next week (against Parramatta)."

Souths scored three tries in eight minutes to hit the lead 22-20 by the 53rd minute but the Dragons looked to have snatched it from the fire when Matt Cooper got his second in the 74th minute and the home side led 26-24.

But, bizarrely, Chris Sandow's kick-off performed a leg break worthy of Shane Warne for his side to pinch possession from a scrum and Farrell bagged the third hat-trick of his short career for the clincher.

As well as Farrell, Nathan Merritt, Rhys Wesser and Nathan Peats scored tries for Souths with Sandow booting five from six.

Cooper and Jason Nightingale bagged doubles for the Dragons with Brett Morris also scoring a try and Jamie Soward booting two from five.

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