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South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett is pondering an NRL finals campaign without his star fullback after Latrell Mitchell's high shot likely ended Joey Manu's season and marred their 54-12 win over the Sydney Roosters.

Roosters centre Manu was sent to hospital with a suspected fractured cheekbone after Mitchell's shoulder in a wild tackle sent him crashing to the Suncorp Stadium turf on Friday.

Mitchell was sin-binned and, if stung with a grade two dangerous contact charge, could miss the rest of the season given the loading he's accrued from a string of previous incidents.

The 24-year-old had gone to another level at fullback this season, offering hope that Souths could challenge title fancies Melbourne and Penrith after he missed last year's finals series with a hamstring injury.

Former NSW coach and administrator Phil Gould said Mitchell's tackle had effectively knocked both teams out of the competition, while Paul Gallen was adamant Souths, currently third, couldn't win without Mitchell in the No.1.

"We'll have to wait and see," Bennett said when asked if they could win the title without Mitchell.

"He's a huge player for us, but we didn't have him last year in the playoffs and I think we're a better team than we were last year and pretty good at getting other players to play well for us in key positions.

"We've won a lot of games this year with a lot of players missing.

"At the moment, we're looking at a couple of key players missing through suspension, but I'm confident there's enough good players to make it happen.

"It just makes it a bit harder."

Liam Knight was also reported for a hip drop tackle on Siosiua Taukeiaho, leaving Bennett to admit any plans to rest players in next week's final round could be taken out of his hands by the judiciary.

Roosters coach Trent Robinson launched a post-match tirade at the officials for their handling of both incidents.

He compared the bunker to a circus "so bad it's actually funny" and declared former Rooster Mitchell needed to "get that (foul play) out of his game".

"Trel plays on the edge and that's what makes him a great player to watch," he said.

"He's a wonderful player, but I can look at that and think of course Latrell needs to get that out of his game.

"I'm angry at him for that incident ... I absolutely love him but he's just cost one of his good mates (Manu) his season ... it's not on and really hurts."

Bennett fired back when told of Robinson's remarks.

"Trent's got a couple of those players himself that he coaches, I don't know why he's looking over the fence at us," he said.

"No-one likes to see what happened out there tonight, but it's out of my control now and we'll see what happens."

© AAP 2021

Image: South Sydney Rabbitohs Facebook

Josh Dugan has been fined $50,000 by the NRL and booted out of Cronulla's biosecurity bubble for his second COVID-19 breach in less than two months.

The 31-year-old former Australia and State of Origin star was charged by NSW Police earlier this week for breaking state health orders after attempting to travel with a friend to Lithgow in western NSW.

The pair were pulled over twice and ordered to return home, allegedly telling police they were moving to the area and were going to feed animals before saying they were visiting a friend.

"The (NRL) has issued Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks player Josh Dugan with a breach notice for failing to comply with the game's biosecurity protocols," a statement on Thursday read.

"The notice proposes Dugan is fined $50,000 and removed from the club's biosecurity bubble in NSW.

"The notice alleges Dugan drove to Lithgow with a friend on the evening of 20 August, in contravention of the game's level 4 protocols."

It has put Dugan's 215-game NRL career in severe jeopardy because he is without a contract for next season.

Two months ago he breached the NRL's biosecurity rules after going to a restaurant while under the game's strict protocols as the COVID-19 outbreak took hold in Sydney.

Dugan was fined $25,000 by the NRL and he wasn't included in the Cronulla squad when the Sharks moved to their Queensland camp..

"In considering the proposed penalty, the NRL took into account that the alleged breach was Dugan's second serious contravention of biosecurity protocols in the past two months," the statement read.

"The NRL alleges that Dugan has shown a continued failure to comply with the protocols and poses an unacceptable risk to his teammates in the NSW bubble."

The ex-representative star now has five days to respond to the breach notice.

He is set to face charges of not complying with NSW health orders at Lithgow Local Court on October 7.

© AAP 2021

Image: NAPARAZZI, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A lockdown in regional NSW has been extended by two weeks as Deputy Premier John Barilaro warns rural communities are "a tinderbox ready to explode" with COVID-19 cases.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the decision was made because western NSW remained the area of most concern in the regions, while cases had stabilised in other rural areas.

"Given that acute situation in Dubbo, in particular, the region lockdown will be extended to all of regional NSW until at least midnight, Friday the 10th of September," she said on Thursday.

Most of regional NSW has been in lockdown for a fortnight.

It was due to end on Saturday, but there are now 309 cases in Dubbo in the state's west where vaccination rates are low - around six per cent in the vulnerable Indigenous community.

Twenty-four new cases were recorded in Dubbo overnight.

Local MP Dugald Sanders acknowledged a return to zero COVID cases was "unreachable" but said an extension of the lockdown would be an opportunity to get numbers lower.

Around 60 per cent of cases in the Western Local Health District are in Aboriginal people.

Wilcannia saw five new cases overnight.

Mr Barilaro said it was necessary to extend the lockdown to protect regional communities.

"We're sitting on a knife-edge. It's a tinderbox ready to explode," he said.

He apologised to communities that didn't have any new COVID-19 cases, which will be caught up in the lockdown, but said the decision would also ensure "we don't overwhelm the system".

"One of the reasons you may not have cases is because of the restrictions in place, minimising movement, because we know we're a very interconnected community in regional and rural NSW," Mr Barilaro said.

"Now is the time to stay united and work to those restrictions."

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said "everything that is done should be done and is being done" to support rural health services.

Some 18 people are hospitalised in western NSW, including one who is ventilated.

Health worker numbers have been impacted as 134 staff are forced to isolate, 21 of whom were exposed to the virus at work.

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant endorsed the extension of the regional lockdown.

"At the moment, with our stretched system, we do not want to be fighting bushfires on multiple fronts," she said.

Of the record 1029 locally acquired cases reported across the state on Wednesday, 35 were in the Western NSW Local Health District, bringing the total number of cases there to 389.

There were 71 cases in the Nepean Blue Mountains district, six in the Far West, two in Illawarra Shoalhaven, and two on the Central Coast.

There were no new cases in the Hunter New England district.

NSW Health's ongoing sewage surveillance program has recently detected fragments of the virus at the sewage treatment plants in Tamworth, Merimbula, Cooma and Brewarrina.

Authorities are concerned because there are no known cases in these areas.

© AAP 2021

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