Prodigal son Craig Wing used personal tragedy to inspire South Sydney to a remarkable 22-12 come-from-behind NRL win over Newcastle at Bluetongue Stadium on Sunday.

Wing scored two tries in a man-of-the-match performance just five hours after being told his grandmother, Patricia Wing, had passed away after a long illness.

Wing didn't reveal his personal loss to any teammates prior to kick off, he just quietly applied a thin strip of black tape to his arm and went out and won Souths the game in his NRL comeback game from multiple surgeries in the off-season.

"I know that she would have wanted me to be out there regardless of what happened," said Wing.

"That is why I tried to play a good game, do her proud.

"We've been lucky enough to be able to talk to her as she came in and out of consciousness to say goodbye and tell her we love her."

While Wing had every right to feel lost out on the football field, it was his injection in the 28th minute that saved South Sydney from defeat.

The Rabbitohs were appalling in the first half and trailed Newcastle 8-0 at half-time.

Wing provided spark out of dummy half but it wasn't until hooker Issac Luke rejoined the play in the 51st minute, prompting Wing to move to lock, that the Rabbitohs began to run amok.

After going 132 minutes without scoring a try, including last week's loss to Parramatta, Wing stepped his way over in the 57th minute to kick-start a run of four tries in 15 minutes to blow Newcastle off the park.

"It was totally unexpected," said Wing of his try scoring efforts.

"When you are coming back from time out and a few injuries you question your fitness a bit.

"I just wanted to make my tackles, get a few runs in and to score a couple of tries is a bit of a bonus."

Rabbitohs coach Jason Taylor praised Wing's performance and admitted "the penny dropped" with the rest of the side when the former Test star busted Newcastle through the middle.

Luke's dummy half break led to Fetuli Talanoa's 59th minute try, before Wing barged over from dummy half in the 69th minute to give South Sydney an eight point buffer.

Kiwi Test star Luke then sealed the result in the 72nd minute, running 40m after a superb offload from skipper Roy Asotasi to David Fa'alogo to score beneath the posts.

It is the first time since 2003 that Souths have failed to score any points in the first half and come back to claim victory.

Newcastle managed a consolation try four minutes from fulltime with centre Junior Sau strolling over in the corner.

"I thought we did a lot of things right for a long time in the game today but when it counted we didn't have the petrol there to be able to sustain ourselves," said Newcastle coach Brian Smith.

Newcastle halfback Scott Dureau had a strong first half, running the ball on the last tackle of the first set of six for James McManus to score and kicking for Akuila Uate to cross in the 16th minute.

But his casual try scoring attempt nine minutes after the break, with Beau Champion holding him up inches above the turf, came back to haunt the Knights as they fell away from that point.

Taylor said he knew the Knights would tire throughout the game as they had to back-up from a tough Monday night victory over Cronulla.

"It was going to be a factor," said Taylor.

"I was aware of that.

"At this point in the year, early in the season when teams have got short turnarounds, they're disadvantaged in my opinion.

"Particularly early in the year teams don't seem to win much after Mondays."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP