Dragons captain Ben Hunt keen to bounce back from 'shocker' against Sharks

It's a blunt take, especially for a bloke who laid one of just two tries for his side in the 20-10 defeat to the competition leaders that only got away from the Dragons late.

Regardless, as the No. 7, Hunt said a second half that saw his side make 10 errors and never look like striking a blow with the footy was on him.

"As a halfback, your good games and your bad games can't be far apart," Hunt said.

"I did a couple of good things in the game, but if you want to have a good game as a halfback, you've got to have a good kicking game, you've got to defend well.

"You've got to tick a lot of boxes and, for me, I was was pretty disappointed in my kicking game. We didn't finish our sets off well enough and I had a bit of a shocker to be honest.

"That comes back on myself and our kicking game. I need to be better there. You can't blame the conditions, the conditions weren't that bad.

"We're obviously settled as a spine, we've had nine games together, so there's no excuses for us now."

Coach Shane Flanagan was equally frank in saying his team was "awful" in its lack of execution with the football, but Hunt did see a response to a 60-point hammering at the hands of the Roosters.

"We gave ourselves a bit of a chance to beat a team that's going pretty good, they're sitting at the top of the ladder," Hunt said.

"You look at that Roosters game, there were some tough patches, but we leaked points. We rolled over a bit in that regard.

"In the Sharks game we really gritted our teeth and worked hard defensively. It's probably one of the best, complete defensive games we've had for a while.

"The Sharks are well known to be a very good attacking side and I felt like we did defend them pretty well, we just didn't give ourselves a chance attacking.

"We kept turning the ball over at our own end and we didn't get our end of sets right, and just kept giving them opportunities.

"That was very disappointing, but we need to move on now. If we can back that up and defend like that again, and build on our attack this week, it'll be very positive."

The injury-hit Rabbitohs are in the midst of a horror run that's seen the sacking of coach Jason Demetriou and an injury toll headlined by skipper Cam Murray.

Interim coach Ben Hornby will welcome back star man Latrell Mitchell from suspension this week, having named him at fullback despite whispers he could have been deployed in the centres or halves.

Fairly or not, Mitchell has worn much of the flak - as far as the playing group goes - for Demetriou's demise.

Hunt's expecting his Kangaroos Test teammate to answer the call on his return at Kogarah.

"We're coming up against a Souths side that's going to be very desperate," Hunt said.

"They've got their inspirational leader coming back in Latrell (Mitchell). He really inspires them and it's going to be a tough challenge.

"Latrell's the type of player that's going to come back with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He'll want to prove a point.

"He's very passionate and he'll want to lead his team around. We've got to be very smart and kick [to him] very well."