South Sydney look headed for finals for the first since 1989, but it took coach Jason Taylor all of five minutes to bring his players back to earth after they moved back into the NRL top eight with a 24-18 upset of Manly at Telstra Stadium.

Showing the type of spirit on which many of their 20 premierships successes were built, the Rabbitohs came back from the what looked like the dead when they trailed 18-6 at the break.

Three unanswered tries and 40 minutes later, the Bunnies had leapfrogged Brisbane into eighth spot on the ladder with the win sealed when lock Ben Rogers kicked in behind the line nine minutes from time for flying winger Fetuli Talanoa to score.

But Taylor was quick to keep a lid on emotions, knowing the Rabbitohs still needed another win to guarantee a finals berth.

"We've already talked about what we want to do this week as far as preparation goes for next week," Taylor said.

"It's not just the fans that are excited about this - we've got a lot of players that are excited as well.

"We've got some players that are desperate to play in semi-final footy who haven't played in semi-final footy for a long time.

"Paul Mellor's been around for a number of years ... watch him play - he's playing every game like it's his last."

Souths looked gone when they trailed 18-6 at halftime. Steve Menzies was one of three Manly tryscorers as he touched down for career try No.165, joining former Cronulla great Andrew Ettingshausen in second place on the all-time tryscorers list behind Ken Irvine (212 tries).

But it wasn't just the 12-point deficit, which would have had the South faithful concerned at the break.

Just before halftime the home side had six straight sets on the Manly line, but the second best defence in the NRL held firm.

The empty harvest would have been enough to break a lesser team, but two tries in the space of four minutes shortly after the restart to rookie Issac Luke and backrower John Sutton levelled the scores before Talanoa's late match-winner.

"We were disappointed at halftime - the boys were a little rattled to be honest because we had a lot of ball on Manly's tryline and we couldn't get across there," Taylor said.

"But it was a credit that we stuck at what we came here to do in the second half.

"It would have been easy to get away from that and think we'll it's not working, let's do something else, but we kept at it.

"Eventually it was very, very satisfying."

The loss ended Manly six-game winning streak and all but handed Melbourne back to back minor premierships, the Storm with a four-point lead at the top of the ladder with two rounds remaining.

Sea Eagles coach Des Hasler said he would consider resting players now that his side can't be bumped from second spot, but given the disappointing second half collapse, it would be unlikely many players would be game to put their hand up asking for a break.

"We defended well, but the 50-50's probably went 90-10 (Souths way) today," Manly captain Michael Monaghan said.

"It sort of just builds up on you and the second half we didn't have the energy, but in saying that we probably shot ourselves in the foot a bit."

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