NRL: Souths deny Luke upset by benching

Issac Luke is not out of favour at Redfern and his impending departure had nothing to do with the decision to bench the New Zealand test hooker. Photo / Brett Phibbs

South Sydney coach Michael Maguire says Issac Luke is not out of favour at Redfern and his impending departure had nothing to do with the decision to bench the New Zealand test hooker.

During the week Souths agreed to release the star No9 from the final year of his contract and he announced he would return home to play with the Warriors in the 2016 NRL season.

Despite Luke starring for New Zealand in their transtasman test win over Australia last week, Maguire made the surprise decision to start Cameron McInnes at dummy half ahead of Luke against St George Illawarra at ANZ Stadium on Monday night.

The 27-year-old's exit puts Souths in a difficult position - they have also lost Nathan Peats and Apisai Koroisau over the last two seasons and must now find Luke's replacement.

McInnes had been anointed Luke's heir apparent and his elevation could be seen as an attempt to groom him for the starting No9 role next year.

However Maguire flatly denied Luke's decision to leave Redfern had anything to do with his benching and it was based on form.

"We've got standards in our club around how we play and how we perform, so it was just a bit of a rotation," Maguire said.

"[We] both talk about his game quite a lot and we agreed we wanted to start with Camo tonight."

Maguire said Luke had injected spark into the side when he came on midway through the first half.

"He was good and brought a lot of enthusiasm."

- AAP