Time to embrace southern ruffians (5)

I believe the answer is:

thugs

'ruffians' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'time to embrace southern' is the wordplay.
'time' becomes 't' (abbreviation).
'to embrace' becomes 'hug' ('hug' can be a synonym of 'embrace').
'southern' becomes 'S' (abbreviation).
't'+'hug'+'s'='THUGS'

(Another definition for thugs that I've seen is " Ruffians".)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.

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