Rabbitohs ready to end 612-day wait as new year brings renewed optimism

South Sydney's 612-day wait to have their star players back together will finally end on Sunday afternoon when the Rabbitohs take on the Dolphins at Suncorp Stadium. 

The past two years have not been easy for a club that prides itself on winning premierships. 

A crippling injury toll will do that to you. 

Mitchell has played 11 games in each of the past two seasons. Wighton was restricted to 15 matches last year, Walker just 11. 

After featuring in 14 games in 2024, Murray's 2025 campaign was effectively over before it even began. The NSW and Kangaroos star tore his Achilles at a horror pre-season training session that also saw Mitchell injure his hamstring.

Murray made it back for South Sydney's Round 27 clash with the Roosters, but by that point his side was out of the finals race. 

Unsurprisingly, the injury struggles contributed to a disappointing season on the field. The Rabbitohs finished 14th on the ladder and averaged just 17 points a game in attack, ahead of only the Titans.

A staggering 11 halves pairings were rolled out throughout the year. Wighton featured in two of those and said it was more than enough to derail any team's campaign. 

"You see teams fall apart when one key player disappears," Wighton said. "To be losing 10 or 11 at a time last year [was really tough].

"The more reps we get together, the more cohesion, it's only going to be better for us."

This season, Rabbitohs players and fans hope, will be different. 

A calf injury to Brandon Smith has tempered the excitement a little bit, but the arrival of David Fifita and Latrell Mitchell's shift to left centre promises to unleash a lethal attacking edge. 

Walker will pull the strings as the dominant left-edge half, while Alex Johnston rounds out the unit on the wing. The veteran is just two tries short of Ken Irvine's all-time record and will surpass the legendary finisher with a hat-trick on Sunday afternoon.

The early signs in a pre-season victory over Manly were positive and Walker said the best is still to come. 

"We are going to continually work on that combination with Latrell and Dave, Jye [Gray] and AJ on that left edge as well," Walker said. "It's a work in progress.

"It's hard to compare different edges but I think we'll just continually grow that. We weren't perfect in Mudgee. There is going to be that little bit of working out what works for each of us.

"[In the trials] we saw that if [the defence] stack that left edge, we've got some really good strike players on the right edge too."

Mitchell's return to the centres has prompted Wighton's move from the left edge to the right. There he will sit inside winger Campbell Graham, another player who endured a torrid injury run in the past two seasons. 

Wighton's shift has not been without its challenges, the centre compared it to walking on your hands, but the early signs are promising.

The duo combined for a try in a dominant Witzer Pre-Season Challenge win over the Sea Eagles and hope to be just as effective as their high-profile teammates on the other side of the field.

"It's like walking on your hands every week," Wighton said of his switch. "Everything's back to front. When they told me I was jumping over to the right, obviously I'll do whatever's best for the team.

"It takes some real adjusting with your footy. Your passing, your stepping, palming, is all back to front. I feel like I've settled but there's still a lot of work to do."

For all the challenges that popped up throughout 2025, the Rabbitohs are still taking plenty of positives from a tough year. 

The staggering injury toll thrust a host of emerging players into the spotlight well before they were expected to. 

Playmaker Ashton Ward leads a lengthy list of players who stood tall in trying circumstances. The Gerringong product will start at halfback on Sunday, while Jye Gray has made the fullback position his own with a series of electrifying performances in the past two years.

Wighton can see the long-term positives of two injury-affected seasons and said the young crew will play a key role in South Sydney's rise up the ladder in 2026. 

"You've got Tom Fletcher, Ashton Ward, Liam Le Blanc, Lachlan Hubner," Wighton said. "They're all kids who got a boatload of experience because of the situation we were in. 

"That's the positive we're taking, it's going to work in our favour this year. The team who ran out against the Dragons [in the Charity Shield], the way they knew the system and stuck to the gameplan. It was just as good as the first team, so it's a really good sign."