South Sydney's medical staff will determine on Monday whether the club's injured NSW hopefuls can line up in the must-win second State of Origin game on June 21.
Latrell Mitchell, Cody Walker and Cameron Murray all missed Saturday's upset NRL loss to St George Illawarra with short-term soft-tissue injuries and are racing the clock for the chance to be named on Brad Fittler's team sheet on Tuesday.
Mitchell missed the series opener after tweaking his calf in camp, while Murray went down with a groin injury in the Rabbitohs' defeat of Gold Coast last week.
Walker's injury is the most recent and his injury cloud the darkest; the five-eighth hurt his quad warming up for the captain's run on Friday morning and withdrew from the side to face the Dragons.
The trio's big-game experience and well-grooved club combinations have potential to rouse the Blues to victory at Suncorp Stadium and flip the script on NSW's loss in the series opener.
Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou previously said the trio would be given "every chance" to line up and that the injuries were all a chance to take turns for the better or worse with each passing day.
The club's physiotherapists will make the final decision as to whether they are released for Origin duty, and that decision will come before the NSW team is named on Tuesday.
"They're not even trying to make a call yet, they're giving them every opportunity they can," Demetriou said after the Dragons loss.
"Come Monday, they'll assess them.
"Every run you do at this point, you might wake up the next day feeling great and progress further, or you might wake up sore and have to go a day back.
"Everyone's just going to have wait and see."
Damien Cook's Origin selection situation appears more concrete after his starring performance in a losing effort on Saturday.
Captaining Souths for the first time, Cook made a game-high 51 tackles and dashed away on two line breaks, the second of which led directly to a Rabbitohs try.
The hooker had been dropped for the series opener after playing 15 consecutive games for NSW and was already the favourite to replace the injured Api Koroisau, who broke his jaw playing for Wests Tigers on Thursday.
Cook said Fittler had not been in contact with him after Koroisau's injury and that an Origin recall was not on his mind ahead of the game with the Dragons.
"I was more worried about Api, if anything," he said.
"Api deserves his spot in there, he played great in the first game and now he's got a terrible injury so I was feeling for him.
"Freddy will make his selections. As long as he backs himself and chooses who he wants to, that's all it is."
