Melbourne's mid-season slump has shown no signs of ending after South Sydney inflicted a 24-12 defeat on the Storm at Accor Stadium.
The loss means that Craig Bellamy's side have dropped out of the NRL's top-four after suffering a fourth consecutive defeat for the first time since 2015.
Souths' victory - their first over Melbourne since 2018 - was inspired by the try-scoring feats of winger Alex Johnston, who completed a brace either side of halftime and now has 13 tries in his past six games.
The Papua New Guinean international took his tally of career tries to 157 and is one score away from entering the top 10 of tryscorers in the history of the game in Australia.
Keaon Koloamatangi, Jaxson Paulo and Lachlan Ilias all joined Johnston in crossing the whitewash as Souths recorded their fourth straight win and moved up to sixth spot.
Koloamatangi got the Rabbitohs rolling with a first-minute try and no matter how hard Melbourne tried they quickly became the architects of their own downfall by coughing up the ball on a soggy Sydney night.
Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Harry Grant and Alec MacDonald were all guilty of clumsy ball handling and television cameras captured Bellamy in a state of rage in his coach's box.
Apart from a few smart kicks, the Storm halves pairing of Cameron Munster and Jahrome Hughes failed to find their groove.
Johnston scored his first after teaming up with Latrell Mitchell and the only time that Souths' defence relented in the first half, centre Marion Seve got the Storm on the board.
Seve cantered past Cody Walker from a scrum play to score from 50 metres out to cut the Bunnies' halftime lead to 10-6.
After the break, Mitchell set up Johnston in near identical fashion before Ilias backed up a bustling Koloamatangi to dot down.
Mitchell had a quiet night by his standards but the fullback nearly pulled off the play of the season when Souths were deep in their own territory on zero tackle and he kicked over the top for Johnston to chase.
Johnston beat all the Storm players to the ball and hacked ahead but fumbled in the in-goal.
Paulo extended Souths' lead soon after with Dean Ieremia offering Melbourne's only response with a little more than 20 minutes to go.
The Storm were unable to push the Rabbitohs late on and their discipline and lack of creative spark will be a concern for Bellamy.
