Souths toss up grand final shock

South Sydney coach Michael Maguire has refused to rule out pulling a late NRL grand final surprise and throwing back-up hooker Cameron McInnes onto his bench for Sunday’s clash against Canterbury.

Api Koroisau has been named as Issac Luke’s replacement at hooker for the premiership decider, but the Fijian youngster has scarcely gone 80 minutes in his fledgling 13-match career.

Maguire admitted at Thursday’s Grand Final lunch at Darling Harbour that he is yet to finalise his bench and how many minutes Koroisau would play at No.9.

With no recognised dummy-half back-ups on his bench, Maguire might be forced to call-up 20-year-old McInnes in a further change to cover Luke’s suspension.

If McInnes was to be called up, bench forward Jason Clark would be in the firing line to lose his spot.

Maguire was keeping his cards close to his chest.

“We’ll see how the game goes, we’ve got a few back-up plans,” Maguire said on stage.

“Api has done a great job and Issac has mentored Api in a great way. We know we’ve got a quality player coming into the team.”

Asked about the prospect of playing McInnes, Maguire replied: “Maybe”.

Another selection Maguire isn’t decided on is whether to start Queensland forward Ben Te’o in the back row, or have the departing powerhouse come off the bench.

Last week Te’o was one of the most influential players on the field coming on as an interchange weapon, but Maguire has named him to start ahead of youngster Kyle Turner for this week.

“Benny brought a lot of enthusiasm coming into that game,” Maguire said.

“We’ll see as we get closer to the game.”

South Sydney superstar Greg Inglis said the players had taken inspiration from Luke’s attitude towards being suspended for the biggest game of his life.

“It’s not just any game of footy. It’s one of the ones we all play for,” Inglis said.

“Issac’s a team player and the first thing he said was he was going to be here supporting the team. At the end of the day he’s part of our team and part of our squad.”

Canterbury coach Des Hasler says he’s no closer to announcing a replacement for his captain and hooker Michael Ennis, should he succumb as expected to fractured bones in his foot.

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