Penrith coach Matthew Elliott said he was sick and tired of being on the wrong end of dubious refereeing decisions after his Panthers lost 14-4 to South Sydney in atrocious conditions at Telstra Stadium.

The Panthers and Rabbitohs were locked at 4-all midway through the second half when referee Paul Simpkins penalised Penrith centre Luke Lewis for interfering in the play the ball.

Souths winger Nathan Merritt was trying to play the ball and Lewis was standing alongside him when Simpkins blew the whistle.

It handed the Rabbitohs a penalty about 18 metres out, with Merritt landed the penalty goal to give the Bunnies the lead they would never relinquish to break a five-match NRL losing streak.

"I'm just running out of stuff about being constructive (with) the way that our games are being officiated," Elliott said after the match.

"The same as last week, I felt like we were on the wrong end.

"At the moment it just doesn't feel like there's a parity in the application of the rules, I'm feeling that Penrith's a little easy to penalise, to adjudicate against."

Fullback David Peachey sealed the win with a try in the 75th minute, although that too was somewhat dubious, with video referee Phil Cooley giving the Souths veteran the benefit of the doubt that he grounded the ball from a towering Ben Rogers bomb.

Paul Mellor scored the opening try in the fifth minute, with the Panthers points coming from two Michael Gordon penalty goals in the first half.

It was the first time since 1999 the Bunnies have kept a side scoreless. On that occasion, seven years ago, they beat the Panthers 20-0.

Elliott didn't reserve all his frustration for Simpkins, saying his players failed to give themselves any chance of winning the match played in torrential rain, and in front of a season-lowest crowd of 5,053.

"Everytime (the ball) got up the other end of the park our execution let us down," Elliott said.

"First up, I thought the opposition, to make three errors in those conditions, the kicking game they came up with ... their performance was great."

For Souths coach Jason Taylor the valuable victory broke a five-match losing streak to keep his side in touch with the top eight.

"There was a bit of relief there because we have working really hard," Taylor said post-match.

"We just have not been getting the results."

The second-year coach said the string of losses had shown him the side was made of tough stuff.

"It's where you get the test of what your club is really like.

"If people start fragmenting and talking about each other behind their backs and saying 'well, we're not winning because of this bloke or that bloke', that's when you can't get out of the hole."

Co-captain Roy Asotasi said the victory had come because of a renewed focus on the result rather than the process.

"We just had to win tonight, that's all we're focusing on at the moment," he said.

There were no major injury concerns coming out of the match for either side.

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