Arguably rugby league's most famous club, South Sydney is in southern NSW on Saturday for a pre-season trial game against the best that Group Nine and Group 20 has to offer.
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We'll bring you updates from 3pm, including results of the curtain raisers - the women's game between Riverina and Victoria and the Riverina Under 23s match against Victoria's Under 20s.
The big game gets underway at 6pm.
The Riverina Invitational side, coached by Albury's Josh Cale, has nothing to lose against a young and relatively inexperienced squad of Rabbitohs. But as supercoach Wayne Bennett sets out in his first season as coach of the Bunnies, the NRL club's selected players are under pressure to stake their claim for spots.
Kyle Turner captains a Souths side including Campbell Graham, Mawene Hiroti, Jacob Gagan, Cory Denniss, Junior Tatola, Kurt Dillon and Bayley Sironen who have all played NRL and will be keen to put on a good show ahead of Souths' later trials including a John Sutton Testimonial and the annual Charity Shield.
Group Nine premiers Gundagai (James Smart, James Luff, Tyron Gorman and Noa Fotu), grand finalists Southcity (Kyle McCarthy, Nick Skinner, Nathan Rose, Jack Lyons) and match hosts Albury Thunder (Robbie Byatt, Adrian Purtell, Etu Uaisele, Jon Huggett) have four players each in the Riverina side. Adam Pearce (Tumut), Chris Maher (Cootamundra), Daniel Foley (Junee) and Temora's Sam Elwin make up the rest of the Group Nine contingent in a 23-man squad.
On Friday, Wayne Bennett urged the Riverina players to seize their opportunity to tackle NRL standard opposition, Riverina five-eighth Nathan Rose said they were looking forward to the test, and Rabbitohs star Sam Burgess said Souths' squad is a glimpse of the future as they unveil the club's next generation.
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