In the aftermath of South Sydney's ugly loss to Manly on Friday night, Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire uttered those words that fans find so frustrating. He said his side had "failed to turn up in defence". Hard-working, ordinary people, who follow their club with passion, can't quite understand how professional footballers, on very good salaries, can simply "fail to turn up".

Coaching a rugby league team can be complicated. When you start with a new team, you have an idea what style of football you want to play and you work on that right through the preseason. Then the season starts and each week you study the tapes of your coming opponent, looking for weaknesses that you can exploit. You come up with a game plan that you feel will best take your team to victory. You spend the rest of the week running through the plays and fine-tuning that game plan.

Now comes the hardest part of being a modern-day coach: On game day you go around to each player for a chat, to make sure they know their role and to ensure their head is in the right place. When I was playing, not that long ago, the coach gave his last instructions to the captain and rarely spoke to the rest of the players. Now it is on the coach to make sure the players run onto that field fully focussed and ready to put everything into the coming 80 minutes of football.

Martin Taupau many too many easy metres against South Sydney. Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

We've seen a bit of this from Souths over the past 12 months, with some very dark days along the way. Maguire is a pretty tough task master, and they train very hard. The expectations surrounding the club have risen, obviously on the back of their 2014 premiership. They have lost a few stars and Greg Inglis is out injured at the moment. That level of performance and intensity is hard to hold when the standard of player making up your team is not quite the same.

I got the impression the other night that South Sydney were very heavy legged. They got behind, had a 40/20 kicked against them, and it looked to me like they ran up the white flag. That is something you don't want associated with your football team: To look like they're not having a go.

The problem now for Maguire is that he is playing his best available team. I don't think yelling and screaming at the players is going to help. They need to find a player who is going to lead them out of this slump. Sam Burgess has been great for them, but he can't continue to carry that load if no one else is going with him. His brothers should be much better than they are, Robbie Farah is coming off the bench and looks way below his best, and Adam Reynolds hasn't made a line break in a long time.

Souths pull down Tom Trbojevic Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Souths' biggest problem lies with Alex Johnston at fullback. He's doing a good job but the great fullbacks really direct their defensive lines; Johnston isn't. If Manly stack Daly Cherry Evans, Blake Green and Tom Trbojevic on one side of the ruck, Johnston needs to be screaming at his players to get extra numbers on that side -- and I don't see him doing that.

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It's a long season, but it really all rests on the coach's shoulders.

If Maguire can't turn things around, you can be sure the club will start looking at alternative coaching options. You only have to look at the Tigers and their turnaround since Ivan Cleary came on board. The same bunch of players, nothing much different in playing style, but a world of difference in attitude. Everyone is suddenly turning up to play.