Souths have been dealt another injury blow, and a particularly cruel one for their 2026 recruit Adam Elliott, who was taken from the field late in their Sunday loss to North Queensland with a suspected knee injury.

Elliott began limping and laid down on the turf after back-to-back tackle attempts, being helped to the sidelines soon after the fairly innocuous-looking passage as the Cowboys ran in their fifth try.

The 31-year-old was playing just his third game back after a 12-month period on the sidelines, having said just days earlier he was looking forward to building on "good, consistent minutes, uncapped from a physio perspective".

It's expected Elliott will spend another period sidelined, with what Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett said was a syndesmosis injury for the Indigenous All Stars representative.

"He'll be out for a while now," Bennett said following the 30-18 loss in Townsville.

Following a disappointing 32-10 loss to the Dolphins the previous weekend at Magic Round, back-to-back defeats has seen the Bunnies tumble out of the top four and sit seventh — equally with the 10th-place Tigers on 14 points.

It also comes as their injury list deepens.

Souths were on the back foot from early on in proceedings when the Cowboys put first points on the board inside five minutes, and took an 18-6 lead into the sheds at half time.

Coming into the centres in place of an injury Latrell Mitchell, Latrell Siegwalt kicked two of three conversion attempts with a penalty goal helping Souths tally, but 15 errors, including multiple leading to tries, cost the visitors.

"Overall it was a disappointing result," Cody Walker said post-match, captaining in place of Origin-returnee Cameron Murray.

"I thought the effort was there. We were coming home with a wet sail, a couple of disallowed tries. If you look back to the first half, we had two errors in our half, and we conceded tries off the back of that. So for us, we've just got to be disciplined, with and without the ball.

"If we're going to make errors, we have to be good enough to defend them when. And we weren't tonight. So that was the difference, I thought"

Still playing through a torn PCL in his knee suffered in round nine, Alex Johnston nabbed a late consolation try - though could have had another couple through the game.

They were tries he certainly would have scored, if he weren't running on "one and a half legs" Bennet said of Johnston, who gave the winger credit for his efforts playing through injury.

Elliott joins Latrell Mitchell, who ruled himself out of Origin with back concerns, and Brandon Smith (calf) on the Bunnies' list of injured players without a clear return date circled.

Rabbitohs Jack Wighton is expected to return from a fractured arm in round 18.

Isaiah Tass hasn't played in 2026 after an ACL injuty.

The Rabbitohs next play against the Sea Eagles on Thursday, June 4 after their bye this weekend.