South Sydney look like sticking with their plan of switching captain John Sutton to lock this season, despite injury to first-choice NRL five-eighth Luke Keary.
Boom rookie Dylan Walker will wear the No.6 jersey in Saturday night’s Charity Shield clash against St George Illawarra, after Keary was ruled out for five months with a pectoral injury.
Keary was one of the major injury blows of the inaugural Nines tournament and his hopes of partnering Adam Reynolds in the halves at Souths have been shattered.
However, coach Michael Maguire has resisted the urge to simply move Sutton back to five-eighth, where he played all of last season.
Playing Sutton at the back of the scrum allows the Rabbitohs to play Sam Burgess in a block-busting front row alongside brother George.
Sutton is built like a back-rower and playing lock should suit his game which is centred around running the football.
Walker has played the majority of under 20s football at five-eighth but it will be a big step up for the speedster to help steer an NRL side around the paddock.
Squad: Greg Inglis, Nathan Merritt, Beau Champion, Bryson Goodwin, Lote Tuqiri, Dylan Walker, Adam Reynolds, George Burgess, Issac Luke, Sam Burgess, Ben Te’o, Chris McQueen, John Sutton (capt). Interchange: Apisai Koroisau, Dave Tyrrell, Thomas Burgess, Luke Burgess, Ben Lowe, Joe Picker, Joel Reddy, Kyle Turner, Alex Johnston, Kirisome Auva’a, Nathaniel Neale