John Greco at ANZ Stadium
South Sydney have heaped pressure on a host of teams in the lower half of the top eight, keeping their slender finals hopes alive with a scrappy 24-16 win over Parramatta at ANZ Stadium on Friday night.
The Rabbitohs' 14-point victory, coupled with the Broncos' heavy loss to the Warriors in New Zealand earlier on Friday, has catapulted Souths into the top eight, although the Raiders can leapfrog them by beating the lowly Cowboys on Saturday night.
The Bunnies go into next weekend's final round on 26 points, currently level with the Broncos and Raiders and just two points behind both the Sea Eagles and Roosters, who play each other on Sunday.
John Lang's team meet the first-placed Dragons in the last game of the regular season and will need to win and hope the Broncos beat the Raiders to ensure themselves a spot in the finals.
While their finals chances aren't yet in the own hands, the Rabbitohs have put themselves in a position to snatch the final playoff spot should any of the current top eight sides slip up.
After making the grand final last year, the defeat ends any faint hopes the Eels had of making a surge for the finals and is sure to heap more pressure on under-fire coach Daniel Anderson.
While it wasn't their most polished performance of the season, the Rabbitohs will be happy just to still be in the hunt for the top eight after disposing of the Eels in front of more than 19,000 fans.
With their seasons on the line, unfortunately both sides produced a first half that wouldn't strike any fear into any potential opponent in the top eight.
Either side could have taken a stranglehold on the match in the opening stanza but dished up a mistake-ridden first 40 minutes of handling errors, poor options in attack and missed tackles.
The Rabbitohs went the closest to notching any points, both chances coming from kicks inside the first five minutes, but first Sam Burgess and then Luke Capewell dropped the ball when a try looked on.
It was only the third time this season a match had been locked at 0-0 at the break, with the Eels involved in all of them after similar efforts against the Sharks (Round 4) and the Knights (Round 15).
Whichever side lifted their game first after half-time would take a big step towards winning the match and it was the hosts who accepted the invitation just four minutes after the restart.
With the Rabbitohs just 10 metres out from the Eels line, full-back Rhys Wesser ran across field looking for a runner and when none were forthcoming he threw a dummy, sliding between Nathan Hindmarsh and Justin Poore to score under the posts.
Chris Sandow converted to make it 6-0 and finally give the fans something to cheer about.
After waiting 44 minutes for first points it took less than four more minutes for the Rabbitohs to extend the lead when forward Jaiman Lowe charged onto a Sandow pass close to the line to score his first try of the year.
Sandow made no mistake from right in front to make it 12-0.
The Eels had to be next to score to give themselves any hope and they hit back on 54 minutes with Kris Keating putting Justin Horo over.
After the heartbreak of his late miss against the Tigers