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South Sydney have scored a timely 16-10 NRL upset win over premiers the Sydney Roosters at ANZ Stadium just one week out from the finals series.

South Sydney have turned the NRL premiership on its head with a fiery 16-10 upset of the Sydney Roosters to lock up a top-four spot.

The Rabbitohs stormed home in the second half in front of a fervent 20,093-strong crowd at ANZ Stadium on Thursday as the reigning premiers had their seven-game winning streak snapped.

After looking like they were going to blow the Rabbitohs off the park in the first-half, Wayne Bennett's men sent a warning to the rest of the competition one week out from the finals.

They provisionally moved into third spot but are likely to finish fourth unless the Warriors can upset Canberra on Saturday.

Roosters forwards Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Zane Tetevano are also in danger of being suspended ahead of next week's finals after being put on report.

Tries to Campbell Graham and Billy Smith just two minutes apart midway through the second stanza gave the Rabbitohs their third win in a row.

Remarkably, the Rabbitohs finished the game with just 12 men on the field after losing Dane Gagai to a suspected hamstring injury and Adam Reynolds, John Sutton, Liam Knight and Junior Tatola to head injury assessments.

They were forced to defend the last two minutes down a man but wrapped up the result when Cameron Murray - who typified Souths' determination all night - flattened Smith and forced a turnover.

The Roosters dominated the first half and looked to be tuning up for a run at back-to-back premierships.

Joey Manu was creating all kinds of havoc on the right edge and when he drew two defenders, he popped a magnificent flick pass to Smith who was given a saloon passage to the line.

The Roosters were up 10-2 at the break and considering Latrell Mitchell and Victor Radley both dropped the ball with the line open, they looked to have their opposition on the ropes.

Souths copped another blow when centre Gagai hobbled up the tunnel in the 46th minute.

But the game swung when the Rabbitohs crossed in back-to-back sets to take the lead at 14-10.

First Graham exploited a poor defensive read by Mitchell before Damien Cook split the Roosters up the middle to put Cody Walker over.

Tetevano was put on report for smashing Souths fullback Adam Doueihi without the ball in the lead up to Walker's try.

Waerea-Hargreaves is also in danger of being rubbed out for a high shot on Knight.

Bennett played down the magnitude of the win and refused to call his side's victory brave.

"Everyone just keeps putting their hand up, it's my expectation," he said.

"I don't think it's brave. It's what we do, and we do it well."

Roosters coach Trent Robinson described the defeat as a timely reminder ahead of the finals.

"I thought it was a really good lesson," he said.

"There's some things there we wanted to do better and didn't. Go get your lessons, get some rest on the weekend and get ready to improve them on Monday."

Robinson also denied playmaker Cooper Cronk suffered a shoulder injury after appearing to be injured in the closing seconds.