South Sydney coach Anthony Seibold has stood down from his role with the Queensland Origin team to focus on getting the Rabbitohs back into the Telstra Premiership finals.

Seibold has spent the last two years as Kevin Walters' assistant after having coached the Emerging Maroons squads for four years previous to that.

"I will really, really miss Origin because Kev was so good delegating so much to me. It was also a really good group of players and staff," Seibold told NRL.com.

"I just think it's not fair on the Rabbitohs for me to go and do that, and not fair on the Origin team either for me to leave camp to come back for games. That would be too selfish.

"I just had to make that tough decision and Kev understood. It is time consuming, Origin … even at the assistant coach level."

With Seibold at the helm, Souths not only have their star players on the field, they have a smart, educational mind off it.

Their new coach has a Bachelor of Teaching – completed while he was playing at the Brisbane Broncos – and a Masters of Education, which he finished externally with the University of Southern Queensland while playing for Hull-Kingston Rovers in England's Super League.