The Sea Eagles led 12-0 during the early stages of the match before South Sydney piled on six tries to run out 38-18 winners at Lottoland.

The lacklustre display followed a Round 1 loss to Parramatta, also at home.

Staring down the next month of football against the Cowboys, Bulldogs, Roosters and Dragons, many pundits had the Sea Eagles at 0-6 after six rounds.

But to their credit, the boys from Sydney’s northern beaches rallied to identify what they needed to change.

And it worked.

Three weeks and three wins later, Manly sit in fifth spot and face the high-flying Dragons at home on Saturday.

"I think it was [the wake-up call] after that game, everyone was very disappointed," Trbojevic told nrl.com.

"We thought we started well enough to win that game, we kind of capitulated and that is something we obviously don't want to do and we talked about it during the week and I think that attitude we changed has been massive for us the last couple of weeks. 

"All pre-season has been set up on defence, obviously Souths was one to forget. If we can keep defending well, we'll be likely to win [against the Dragons].

"The last three weeks our attitude has been real good, we've wanted to show energy, we've talked about things and we've gone on the field and done it. 

"That is a massive thing compared to the first two weeks, we still have a long, long way to go."