The South Sydney coach let fly at his players for switching off in the final 15 minutes against Manly on Friday night. Up 40-0, the Rabbitohs failed to score a point in the final 25 minutes as the Sea Eagles posted 24 unanswered points to give the score line some respectability.

Skipper John Sutton had already laid down the law with a post-game huddle on the field, but it was nothing like the serve the players received from Maguire when they entered the changes room.

"That's up there," centre Dylan Walker said of Maguire's post-game rant. "It's constructive criticism. We were disappointed in ourselves. We knew it wasn't the best 15 minutes for us. It's good we realise that because we have a lot to work on in the next couple of weeks.

"He was disappointed. You can't expect to win finals games if you're going to be leaking 24 points in 15 minutes. We know finals footy is an 80-minute performance. We didn't do that. He said we were better than that and we have to be an 80-minute team to play whoever we play next. The game won't be like that all the time, the next game is going to be tight."

Walker described leaving Allianz Stadium on Friday night in a moon boot as "precautionary" as he nursed an ankle injury for the bulk of the match after hurting it in the first half. The pain didn't slow him down with Walker finishing the match with a try and two try assists.

The centre said he had a new found hunger after being part of last year's preliminary finals loss in his debut season.

"Going from last year, it was my first year," Walker said. "I wasn't overwhelmed. I was just plodding along. This year I feel a lot hungrier. What we've been through this year, the ups and downs. We can't take it for granted. It can end like that. That's where the hunger comes from. Having chats to the older boys, some of them hadn't played in semi finals footy before.

"Lote [Tuqiri] hasn't played in a grand final for a long time. He cherishes these sort of moments. That's what you get from the older boys."

Walker and fellow rookie centre Kirisome Auva'a outplayed Manly veterans Steve Matai and Jamie Lyon on Friday night.

"We had to worry about ourselves," Walker said. "We had Steve Matai and Jamie Lyon who have done a lot in our game and who have been the best centres for 10 years. It was a big match up but we worried about our job.

"We didn't want to let anyone down. That was our message going into the game."