South Sydney coach Jason Taylor conceded the Rabbitohs' position on the cusp of the NRL top eight was a more realistic representation of where the club was at after they slumped to their fifth loss in six matches.

A week after leaking points like the proverbial sieve, Canberra turned up the defensive pressure to down Souths 16-10 at Telstra Stadium.

The Raiders restricted Souths to just the solitary try to leave the Bunnies in a freefall down the ladder after winning their opening three games for their best start to a season since 1972.

Despite their inability to put points on the board, the Bunnies looked like they were going to get the win before a Todd Carney try 12 minutes from time gave the visitors their first lead.

Raiders centre Adrian Purtell then touched down just before the final hooter following a 'hail mary' bomb from Alan Tongue, leaving Taylor to lament the one that got away.

"We should may have won the game, simple as that," Taylor said.

"We've lost our way a bit (in attack). In the first half I thought we looked threatening in the second half I thought we looked pedestrian at times.

"We started the season so well and probably a little better than anyone expected and maybe snuck up on a few teams and that was great.

"But now we're into the grind of the season and it's not easy.

"Where we're at now is probably more realistic considering where we're coming from."

Despite the late flurry it was Canberra's defence that got them home, particularly a resolute period early in the second half, the turnaround a sensational one after Canberra were embarrassed in conceding 40 second-half points to Manly last week.

"(Defence) has been our focus this week and you don't really know until you get out there and they really delivered tonight," Raiders coach Neil Henry said.

"We certainly made a number of errors and turned the ball over in poor field position a few times and gave Souths every opportunity to come back into the game, but we scrambled well all game."

Souths almost snatched a miraculous win in the dying stages when Raiders winger Bronx Goodwin made a meal of a Williams kick on his own line, but Nathan Merritt and Shannon Hegarty ran into each other as they looked to pounce on the ball.

Earlier, Hegarty had celebrated his 150th first-grade game with the only try of the first half as both sides failed to take advantage of numerous try-scoring opportunities.

Five four-pointers were denied either by the referee or poor handling close to the line, Hegarty finally getting the ball down after 27 minutes when he ran onto a delightful offload from prop Jaiman Lowe.

The Raiders didn't look like getting on the board until Terry Campese sparked them to life 10 minutes after the restart, the powerful five-eighth brushing through a flimsy Williams tackle on his own 30-metre line.

Campese then sent David Milne racing downfield, the young winger in his first top-grade game of 2007 doing brilliantly to turn fullback David Peachey inside out as he raced in under the posts for a 70-metre try.

The news got worse for the home side after the match, with Rabbitohs lock Dean Widders to have scans on a suspected broken hand on Sunday.

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