Jack Wighton will fight his grade two shoulder charge and three match ban offered at the NRL judiciary on Tuesday evening.
The Bunnies stand-in skipper was sent to the sin bin for his hit on Cronulla's Toby Rudolf in the second half of Saturday evening's game in Gosford.
By challenging the decision Souths risk a four match ban for the former Dally M medallist if unsuccessful in a desperate attempt to avoid another selection headache.
They fell to last place with the 14-12 loss to the Sharks.
The Wiradjuri man was set to miss the NRL's Indigenous Round and new addition, the Gadhu Gathering at Allianz Stadium even with an early plea of three matches.
On field referee Belinda Sharpe admitted contact was "head-on-head" but "there was no intention to wrap" before directing Wighton to the sidelines.
"I'll leave it to the officials and see how it plays out," Wighton said in the post match press conference.
Coach Wayne Bennett didn't add to the comment.
Jack Wighton has been sent to the sin bin for this shoulder charge.
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South Sydney enter the final rounds of the season with 12 players unavailable with injury, including regular captain Cameron Murray - who's missed the entire season, the newly-recruited Brandon Smith, star forward Campbell Graham and Indigenous trio Jayden Sullivan, Cody Walker and Latrell Mitchell.
The latter pair have captained the struggling club throughout the season.
Mitchell is circled as a return from a quad injury in a fortnight's time, while there is no set date for Walker to return from a hamstring issue.
Wighton's charge at the weekend came as a second offence on his record.
Souths will aim to take something away from the season and lift themselves off the bottom of the table with four of their remaining five games against sides currently out of the eight.
Those follow Friday's match against the Broncos at Suncorp Stadium.
A stoic Bennett kept his review of Saturday's narrow loss to the Sharks short speaking post-match.
"Couldn't get much more than they gave," Bennett said, adding "the effort was there for everyone to see".
Giving up two tries after going into halftime with a slim lead, Tevita Tatola crashed over for Souths' second with 56 seconds remaining to give his side two plays at staging a comeback win after the restart.
Tatola injured his shoulder in the process of scoring.
A Nicho Hynes penalty goal early in the match made the difference at full time.
