‘I expect him to be fully fit’: Cody Walker and Campbell Graham expected to face the Dolphins in South Sydney’s season opener

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‘I expect him to be fully fit’: Cody Walker and Campbell Graham expected to face the Dolphins in South Sydney’s season opener

South Sydney will start the season without two of their most important players, but there should be some good news ahead of their round 1 clash with Cody Walker, Campbell Graham and Jai Arrow all set to face the Dolphins.

The Rabbitohs were set to fly out to Queensland after Thursday’s captain’s run, but that might be brought forward by 24 hours depending on when Tropical Cyclone Alfred makes landfall.

While it’s unclear when they fly out, Walker is expected to be on the plane after the veteran five-eighth trained strongly on Monday despite missing the trials with a calf issue.

Walker is set to captain the side with Cameron Murray (achilles) unlikely to play again this year, and he is set to partner Jamie Humphreys on Friday night with recruit Lewis Dodd suspended.

Camera IconCody Walker is on track to play the Dolphins on Friday night. Warren Gannon Photography Credit: News Corp Australia

“He trained today and I expect to have him out there, but that’ll be Cody’s call,” South Sydney forward Jai Arrow said.

“He’s nearly 40 years old now, so that’ll be his decision whether he’ll be out there. If he knows he’s right, then he’ll be out there with us.

“I expect him to be fully fit.”

Graham trained on Monday with strapping around his wrist after he broke his hand last month. The strike centre missed the entire 2024 season with a sternum injury but is set to be a huge inclusion for Wayne Bennett.

“We’ve both had a big stint on the sideline last year, so it’s going to be our first game together back this year,” teammate Isaiah Tass said as he prepares to return after his own injury-ravaged campaign.

“It’s going to be a big test for us to see how our match fitness goes.”

Bennett still has some big calls to make with his final squad, but Arrow confirmed he would start in the back row, with Tallis Duncan and Lachlan Hubner fighting it out to replace Murray at lock.

Jye Gray will start at fullback for the injured Latrell Mitchell, with Arrow not worried about external criticism suggesting Souths will struggle to compete without two of their biggest stars.

“I wouldn’t say it’s insulting (because) it doesn’t really worry me,” he said.

“You can understand why people might say that because they’re two crucial players to our side and are leaders of our club, hence you can understand the outside noise.

“But we genuinely haven’t listened to any of it. It’s been a focus on our pre-season and what we wanted to do with our footy.

“It hasn’t been ideal to lose players, but we’ve probably handled it better than anyone in the NRL at the moment with the number of players we’ve lost.

“It’ll be a next man up mentality … so nothing really changes for us. We’re excited with the boys that come in and hopefully make those positions their own for the time being.

“We handled it really well. It happened in a five-minute span at training losing Cam and Latrell. We had to move on pretty quickly, and we feel like we’ve done that.”

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