Sky News

Updated: 22:45, Friday August 28, 2009

South Sydney co-owner Russell Crowe has endorsed coach Jason Taylor as the man to lead the club into the future, despite failing to steer his talented line-up into the top eight in consecutive seasons.

After a promising late-season surge the Rabbitohs are now certain to sit out the NRL finals for a second straight year following last week's heavy defeat at the hands of Penrith.

And the Hollywood star, in Sydney to announce a sponsorship announcement, is less than impressed.

'It's not good enough, it's just not good enough and it's not what we're geared to do,' Crowe said of the club's failure to finish inside the top eight.

But despite his disappointment, the outspoken actor assured Taylor his position is safe.

'Jason's part of the team of what we're doing and that's not going to change,' he said.

'We're going to go forward and make the changes around Jason that he needs in terms of the squad ... and that's step by step every year the things around Jason get perfected.'

'We're creating a team in the mould that Jason Taylor requires to be successful in the NRL, that's what we're doing.'

While the Bunnies, currently in 12th place with two rounds remaining, have made little progress on the NRL ladder after finishing in 14th last season, Crowe insists the club is on target for future success.

'Step by step we're getting where we want to be, this season is the first time a South Sydney squad has scored more than 500 points in an NRL season, you consider that compared to where we were in 2006 before we talk over,' he said.

'There's been a lot of progress going on and it's just in areas that people who can read the game and see the game, they see where we're coming from and they see how we're going to get there.'

'Step by step we'll achieve what we want to achieve and what we want to achieve is to be a regular competitive powerhouse in the NRL. Not just the occasional season where you might do better than you've done before every year - year-in-year-out we want to be competitive.'

Meanwhile, Crowe remains confident the Rabbitohs can win the race to sign boom English prop Sam Burgess.

The persuasive actor met with the 20-year-old Bradford prop in England last month, and while Burgess is contracted to the English Super League club for next season, Crowe is confident he'll get his man.

'He's very keen, he's got one green eye and one red eye already,' Crowe said when asked to rate his chances of securing Burgess.

'He's very keen to join South Sydney ... he's a big fan of (new recruit) Dave Taylors, he played against him in schoolboy play and he's really looking forward to being in a situation where he can play in the same team as him.'

'He's also a big fan of Chris (Sandow), he bought Chris' name up and also Issac Luke, so he's all over what we're doing at the Rabbitohs and he's pretty excited to come along.'

Rabbitohs CEO Shane Richardson was reluctant to speculate on the timing of Burgess' arrival adding: 'We're pretty excited by it, there's a little bit more work to be done on it but we're confident at some stage he'll be playing in the red and green ... the sooner we can get him here the better.'