South Sydney thump Newcastle Knights

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BIG BUNNY: Souths forward Dave Taylor offloads.

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South Sydney rookie Adam Reynolds continues to show why he could be the man to steer the Rabbitohs back to the NRL finals after engineering a 34-14 win over Newcastle on Sunday.

A year after being denied a finals berth with a last round loss to the Knights, the Rabbitohs took a big step towards securing a start in this year's playoffs with the six tries to three win at ANZ Stadium.

Reynolds was at the heart of most attacking raids, his short kicking game leading directly to two tries while a third try assist was butchered when Luke Burgess dropped a pass with the line wide open.

Dropped NSW winger Akuila Uate scored a double for the Knights, but he would have been disappointed with his afternoon's work.

With his side trailing by three converted tries midway through the second period, Uate virtually sealed his side's fate when he was stripped cold of the ball by Chris McQueen after cleaning up an innocuous grubber in his in-goal.

His day at least ended better than that of teammate Kyle O'Donnell, the younger brother of former Test back-rower Luke O'Donnell having his debut stopped after just nine minutes thanks to a legal but vicious Sam Burgess shoulder charge.

The Bunnies didn't take long to take control, Reynolds' kicking game and some crisp passing up the middle of the ruck leaving the Knights defence backpedalling.

Dylan Farrell scored after just seven minutes thanks to a Dave Taylor flick pass, before John Sutton and Andrew Everingham sandwiched tries off Reynolds kicks around Uate's first four-pointer.

Both sides scored again to give the Rabbitohs a 22-10 lead at the break before a neat short side play when a deep backline was set out to the left resulted in Nathan Peats going over virtually untouched down the right edge.

- AAP