A milestone double from try-scoring whiz Alex Johnston has fired South Sydney back into the NRL winners' list with a crucial 28-6 victory over the Warriors in Auckland.
Facing the prospect of tumbling out of the top eight barely a month after leading the competition, the Rabbitohs responded with a wet-weather masterclass at Mt Smart Stadium.
As rain tumbled down throughout Friday night's encounter, it was Johnston and star five-eighth Cody Walker who revived Souths' top-four hopes.
Coach Jason Demetriou called it a "special performance" after last weekend's 31-6 loss to North Queensland.
"You want your players to be enjoying playing footy," he said.
"I felt in the first 20 minutes there was a lot of resilience. We were heavily on the back of a penalty count and to keep turning them away was where the game was built from."
Walker set up Johnston for his second try with a well-judged kick, with the prolific winger admitting that he lost the ball in the lights.
"I was just hoping I caught it and I did, really it was all Cody," Johnston said.
Johnston joined Manly legend Steve Menzies in equal-third place on the premiership's all-time try-scorers' charts with his 179th and 180th four-pointers as the Rabbitohs climbed from eighth to sixth on the live ladder.
"When we're hummin', AJ scores tries," said Demetriou.
"I thought the second one from the cross-field kick from Cody was pretty special.
"He's (Walker) been one of the form players of the competition. He was calm and level headed when we needed him to be."
After four defeats in their previous five games, Souths leaked the opening try of the game through Warriors winger Marcelo Montoya after conceding a string of penalties and possession to the home side.
Shaun Johnson slotted the sideline conversion, but that was as good as it got for the Warriors as the visitors piled on 28 unanswered points in a dominant performance.
First a handling error by Rocco Berry gave the visitors all the space they needed to send Johnston over in the corner, then a penalty in front for an Addin Fonua-Blake high shot soon after led to Blake Taaffe levelling the scores.
The in-form prop can probably count himself unlucky for ending up in the bin for what looked to be a fairly innocuous connection.
Last weekend's four-try hero Dallin Watene-Zelezniak found the going a lot tougher in the unforgiving conditions, dropping a high ball and gifting the Rabbitohs another opportunity.
This time Cameron Murray took advantage of Fonua-Blake's absence and crashed over through a big gap near the posts.
Taaffe almost gave the Rabbitohs the perfect start to the second half when he was hauled down just a metre short, but they didn't have to wait long to extend their lead.
A lovely kick by Walker found Johnston open on the right again, the try leaving the 28-year-old behind only the great Ken Irvine and Billy Slater.
Johnston also tied the legendary Irvine with 50 multi-try games in his career.
After picking on the Warriors' right edge all night, the game-sealing score came on the other side for Souths.
Debutant Tyrone Munro benefited from another perfect Lachlan Ilias kick, gathering to make the score 22-6 and putting the result out of reach while Taaffe collected a long-range effort just before the end to put an exclamation point on the result.
