George Burgess was South Sydney's most dominant prop on his return from reserve grade last week, but coach Michael Maguire insists he still has a long way to go.
Burgess was the first player out on the field at Rabbitohs training on Thursday morning, running agility extras in a bid to keep his spot on South Sydney's bench.
He also topped the Bunnies' front-rowers for metres in Saturday's 38-18 win over Manly, accumulating 107 and making 11 tackles in a 28-minute performance off the bench.
But Maguire said a transformation into the kind of consistent performances he expects out of Burgess still isn't complete.
"It was good to see him improve on where he's been," Maguire said.
"He's still obviously got a way to go with things that he expects and what we expect with where our game is at."
Burgess was dropped following a disappointing outing in this year's Charity Shield, failing to match the kind of form that made him one of the Rabbitohs' most dangerous in their 2014 premiership-winning season.
"We made selections around what we expect and what the team has put forward of what we want.
"When they don't meet that they obviously know that they're not going to be in the team.
"But if they continually work and strive towards that then they're going to put themselves in the window of playing.
"George has done that over a number of weeks, it's just a matter of continuously doing that now."
Burgess reclaimed his spot for the Manly clash after an impressive performance for North Sydney in reserve grade, however the selection came at the expense of his twin, Tom.
The pair were the Rabbitohs' starting forwards at the end of last year, however the emergence of Zane Musgrove as a starting player and Robbie Rochow's arrival from Newcastle has put them both down the pecking order.
Tom has again been named as the last member of the Rabbitohs' 21-man squad for the Newcastle clash on Saturday, and is expected to run out for North Sydney again this weekend.
"I've got a fairly strong forward group that I can select from," Maguire said.
"There are areas we all need to play towards and he's obviously (Tom) is one of those guys in the background working really hard."
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