South Sydney's NRL finals hopes remain alive after the Rabbitohs registered a fifth-straight win to inflict more misery on a Parramatta side inching closer to the prospect of finishing the season with the wooden spoon.
The Eels slumped to a fourth-straight defeat in Thursday's 32-16 loss which was compounded by star prop Junior Paulo trudging off with a suspected footy injury.
Parramatta have won just one game since the club parted ways with Brad Arthur and on a wet and miserable night at CommBank Stadium, the 13,941 fans who bothered to show up had little to celebrate.
Mitchell Moses was also sin-binned for a professional foul late in the game, typifying Parramatta's frustrating night.
"He's frustrated at the moment, he's frustrated with our performance and it probably all boiled over for him," tonight said interim Eels coach Trent Barrett.
The Eels are bottom of ladder, behind Wests Tigers on points differential, but the Rabbitohs are beginning to look up and dream of a late charge towards finals football.
"We hurt ourselves on that one, we were trying to play too pretty at times," said Barrett, who revealed Paulo would head for scans.
"We were too sideways and we didn't handle the conditions right."
Souths, meanwhile, climbed to 13th with the victory to sit just one win outside of the NRL's top eight with a favourable draw over the next month.
Their star trio of Latrell Mitchell, Jack Wighton and Cody Walker all fired, while NSW State of Origin forward Cameron Murray got through the game unscathed.
"Latrell was great today, Cody had some great plays," said interim Souths coach Ben Hornby.
"I could name the whole team to be fair, they're all playing well and their effort was great, I couldn't be happier.
"The spine has been better as a group, our attack has been a bit of work in process and hopefully Jack can continue to show what a great player he is."
The Rabbitohs began like a team that has found a rich vein of form, bursting out the blocks when Walker sent Jacob Gagai before Wighton sliced through some meek defending to increase their lead.
While the Eels' defence was out of sync, their issues with the ball were a whole lot worse.
Their attack was far too lateral and Souths' scramble meant it took the Eels 36 minutes and 23 play-the-balls in the Bunnies' 20m zone to finally cross when Blaize Talagi finally broke through.
The winger's try briefly brought Parramatta back into the contest but on the stroke of halftime, Michael Chee Kam was allowed to offload for Walker in heavy traffic to give Souths a 16-4 lead.
The Eels needed a perfect start to the second half to give themselves a chance and they had a glimmer of hope when Reagan Campbell-Gillard - on to replace Paulo - busted his way over.
But Mitchell hit back for Souths, first sliding on a greasy deck and then sending Gagai in at the corner.
Bryce Cartwright pulled one back for the Eels but after Moses was binned for holding down Jai Arrow, Wighton wrapped up a Souths win with his second try of the night.
