South Sydney are hopeful of having halfback Adam Reynolds back next week as their finals hopes lurched into crisis territory for the first time in Michael Maguire's reign.
Reynolds suffered a freak quad injury while warming up and was a late scratching from the Rabbitohs' 30-10 NRL loss to Brisbane at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.
It continued the halfback's wretched injury run, having been sidelined for most of the first two months of the season with a broken jaw before missing State of Origin III with a shoulder problem.
Coach Maguire said he believed the injury wasn't serious and was upbeat about Reynolds' chances of facing Manly on Monday week.
"Unfortunately prior to the warm up he was doing a bit of kicking and just strained his quad so he wasn't able to get out and join us tonight," Maguire said.
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"We're facing a few different pieces of adversity but through this adversity there's a lot of character growing within individuals.
"My leaders are starting to show some real strength around what we're doing and we need to keep doing that."
The Rabbitohs now look set to miss the finals for the first time since Maguire took over in 2012.
They need to win seven of their last seven to make the eight and must contend with a horror draw.
They face five top-eight sides - including ladder leaders Cronulla and second-placed Melbourne - in the run home.
Sam Burgess said the side was being let down by the fundamentals, in particular their poor completion rate, and was at somewhat of a loss when asked how they could turn it around.
"It's not great is it," Burgess said.
"We're not completing with the ball and we're making it very hard for ourselves.
"I felt like we were in that game but if you look at the scoreboard it was 30-10 but there were some tries we should have stopped and a few early errors that set us back 18 points."
