The Tigers had lost their previous two matches by a combined 79-6 before breaking through for the win, while the Rabbitohs were handed a fourth straight loss.

But an incident from the opening minutes of the match continued a disturbing trend in the league.

It was just seven minutes into the match — and the round — when Wests Tigers’ second-rower Ryan Matterson was tackled just short of the line with Robbie Farah taking a run from dummy half from just five metres out.

The Souths made the tackle with George Burgess seemingly digging his fingers into the eyes of Farah.

“He cops a facial massage as well,” Andrew Voss said in Fox Sports commentary. “This is a bit ugly here. Bit of drama.”

Referee Adam Gee was right on the spot and immediately put Burgess on report.

He said: “the fingers were all around the face and all around the eye, that’s on report”.

In Fox League commentary, Steve Roach said “no, no, no, no, no, no — that’s not on”.

The commentators said it deserved more than just going on report.

“I didn’t notice the first time we saw that he kept pushing the finger in,” Greg Alexander said. “That was in his eye and he kept pushing.”

Roach replied: “That’s when the Bunker should come in and say ‘that is a deliberate eye gouge, see you later’,” he said. “That’s terrible, look at that — he digs it in his eye.”

Burgess has been in trouble for the act in the past, getting caught during the England-New Zealand Tests at the back end of last year.

Burgess copped a four-match ban, missing the first three games of the 2019 Rabbitohs’ campaign.

“I don’t think there’s an argument in that for George Burgess either,” Alexander said. “You know exactly where your hands and fingers are and you certainly know if you have a finger in another player’s eye and you continue to push down.

“I know we’ve had some trouble with eye gouging in recent weeks and we’ve had them fined, that deserves a little bit more than a fine.”

Roach wanted a bit more of an on field punishment than a player going on report and a penalty.

“It’s a second go, that’s terrible,” Roach said. “Honestly, that’s a send off anywhere near the eyes. That’s no good.”

At halftime, the Fox League team discussed the incident.

“It’s just disappointing in a lot of ways,” Danny Buderus said. “I don’t know what he was thinking, you could ask him a thousand times and he probably wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

Corey Parker added: “This is an area in our game we need to eradicate. If we want to eradicate it, he needs to go sit down for the rest of the game. If we’re going to be fair dinkum, you can’t be having that — it’s not a good look for our game.”

Parker said he was “up to the second knuckle”, slamming Burgess for the moment.

“I don’t preach to say I was an angel on the football field but he’s in some trouble, no doubt about that,” Michael Ennis said.

Fans were quick to condemn the act.

Eye gouging has been seeping into the NRL with North Queensland’s Josh McGuire twice fined for the act this season — once in round five against Cameron Munster and again against the Sea Eagles’ Dylan Walker earlier this month.

The Raiders’ Hudson Young was handed a five-week penalty for an eye gouge on the Bulldogs’ Aiden Tolman.

After Young’s eye gouge, NRL head of football said the penalties may get worse after a cluster of incidents.

“It’s fair to say those sorts of incidents aren’t part of our game,” he said. “It’s true we’ve had a small number of them and one of the checks in the judiciary code is to provide a deterrent factor — to prevent the laws of the game from being breached.

“So we do a judiciary review at the end of each year, and we can adjust the points that apply to offences we think need to have the deterrent factor dialled up.”

Post-match, Farah said Burgess had apologised.

“He (Burgess) obviously apologised and said he didn’t mean it,” Farah said. “At the time I thought it was a pretty poor thing. I’ll leave it in the hands of the judiciary.”

The 2019 NRL season will be live and on demand on Kayo Sports for just $25 per month for two devices at once on Apple, Android and Telstra TV, for Apple and Google Android smartphones, on web browsers and via Google Chromecast Ultra devices. Click here for your free trial.

Burgess spent the rest of the match on the sideline with the prop suffering a hip injury but the knives are already out for a longer spell.

The Tigers kicked the penalty goal to go up 2-0 before the Rabbitohs got one of their own with the score locked at 2-all after 20 minutes.

But a Corey Allan try has given Souths an 8-2 lead heading towards the break before the Tigers hit back through Corey Thompson to lock it at 8-all at the break.

The Tigers are seeking their first win at Bankwest Stadium after being blown off the park the Eels and Raiders in games at the ground.

The match was packed with streakers, a crusher tackle and plenty of dropped ball leaving the score at 8-all for much of the second half, until Adam Reynolds broke the deadlock with a 73rd minute field goal.

But it wasn’t enough as Michael Chee-Kam took it upon himself, breaking the line 50m out and streaking away for the match-winner.