With nearly half their salary cap sidelined through injury, South Sydney's NRL season is being kept alive by a group of hard-working replacements who aren't concerned about pay packets.

Drawcards Sam Burgess, Roy Asotasi and Greg Inglis as well as established first graders Ben Lowe, Luke Stuart and Scott Geddes are all out.

Most of the injuries are for the long term and the Rabbitohs have been left seriously lacking in star power and grunt up front.

Despite the sick bay, Souths have put back-to-back wins together, and have looked convincing in doing so.

While halfback Chris Sandow has been the architect, the foundations are being laid by a bunch of underrated, virtual unknowns, coming off the interchange bench.

Young players Jason Clark, Chris McQueen and Nathan Peats have all been playing out of position for coach John Lang as the Rabbitohs attempt to fight through their injury crisis.

Clark is a backrower playing prop, McQueen a winger in the backrow and Peats a hooker doing his best as a lock.

According to coach John Lang and captain Michael Crocker, they're the tenacious, and very capable spare parts keeping the Rabbitohs together.

"We're just young and we just want to be here. There's a lot of blokes on big money here but there's a few of us that are just excited to be here and I've always wanted to do this, so this is my dream come true," said Peats, 20.

"I think we've finally realised there's a lot of blokes out for the year and this is the team we've got, so if we can just stick together like we have the past month or so and just rip in then hopefully we can make the top eight and see where we go from there.

"I think it's just the hungriness of all the boys."

Clark, 21, revealed he and the other rookies at the Rabbits have formed a pact to make sacrifices for the team.

"Even though we're young we've still got to lead from the front no matter what age we are. We're still in the position to lead the team,"Clark told AAP.

"We give up a lot of things, we've got friends who go and have a drink on the weekends and we say `no' so there's lots of things you say no too because you want to play good.

"There's a difference between playing footy and playing good footy so if you want to give your best you've got to put in your best."

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