South Sydney's John Sutton says he has no intentions of returning to lock, and feels very much at home playing at five-eighth.

The 24-year-old has been one of the few stand-out players for Souths since making his debut in 2004 and his move into the halves has seen him develop a promising partnership with young halfback Chris Sandow.

"I am enjoying being in the halves and I prefer five-eighth to lock now and I wouldn't want to go back," Sutton told AAP.

"It has been going really well alongside Chris and hopefully we can both steer clear of injuries and develop our partnership further."

Jason Taylor's side take on the Warriors in Auckland on Sunday on the back of a strong second-half showing in Gosford where they came from behind to beat Newcastle to record their second win in three games.

Despite the good start to the season, Sutton said memories of last year, where Souths were lauded as pre-season contenders only to prove they were nothing more than pretenders after losing their first seven games, are still fresh.

"There mood is a big contrast to this time last year but we are not getting ahead of ourselves.

"Things are going good, everyone is very happy and we head over to New Zealand in good shape.

"We have trained hard over pre-season, have brought in some new players and it is all going good, but we are keeping our feet on the ground, there is still a long way to go, nothing is won in April," said Sutton.

After a stunning start to the season against the Roosters, Taylor's side were brought back down to earth by the Eels in a dour arm-wrestle of a match a week later and Sutton admitted it was not the worst thing to happen to them.

"In the Parramatta game we didn't play as well as we can and it was a real difference to how we played against the Roosters but we learnt from it," he said.

"And the Newcastle game was also a scrappy affair, but we did a lot of things right in the second half which hadn't been the case against Parramatta and although we did not play to our best again, thanks largely to Craig Wing, we won which is the best way to respond to a defeat."

The Warriors also had a strong start to the season before going down to the Broncos last Sunday, but perhaps more costly than the defeat were injuries to the talismanic Steve Price (windpipe) and centre Brent Tait (knee ligaments).

The pair will join knee injury victims Manu Vatuvei and Lance Hohaia on the sidelines.

"It is still a tough game over there regardless of who is missing," said Sutton.

"They have lost a bit of strikepower but we will still have to be at our best to beat them, but we will go into the game full of confidence."

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