Souths coach Michael Maguire has declared his squad has moved on from the Arizona incident and is ready to add to their trophy cabinet.
The NRL premiers will on Sunday fly to England for next weekend's World Club Challenge against Super League champions St Helens with an NRL Integrity Unit investigation hanging over their heads.
After a turbulent week, dumped Rabbitohs captain John Sutton had an eventful return to the field at Redfern Oval on Saturday night as an inexperienced Souths line-up drew 20-all with Queensland Cup champions the Northern Pride.
Sutton was sin-binned for a professional foul and set up a try in his first hit out of the year and will travel with the side to England.
Maguire said he did not expect Sutton to dwell on the controversy which has surrounded an off-field incident in which he and Luke Burgess were arrested during an Arizona training camp late last year.
"He's learnt a lot of lessons out of it and we're moving on," Maguire said.
"It's about moving forward and we're looking forward to a trip overseas.
"We've got a great opportunity to go to England and we're coming up a very good side in St Helens."
Maguire was careful not to stoke the flames of the story and when asked if the club had mishandled the incident, he said: "I've had all my comments and we've moved on to the next step now."
Maguire said he was happy with Sutton's on-field output and expected him to be firing on all cylinders for round one.
"(Sutton) had a good hit out ... we were pretty scrappy in that first half right across the park," Maguire said.
"That made it a bit difficult for us in defence.
"When he came off, unfortunately he got sent off for 10 minutes for a holding-down tackle there but they might have scored if he didn't, but he got out there and got in control of the game."
Share
