Robbie Farah came into Saturday night's pre-season friendly against the English Super League side at ANZ Stadium hoping to make a statement and force Cook out of the No.9 jersey.

Farah, who spent the game switching between hooker and halfback, was mixed while Cook was a standout in two stints at dummy-half.

With Greg Inglis, Sam Burgess, Dane Gagai, Adam Reynolds and Angus Crichton rested, props Tom and George Burgess were also good.

Tom ran for 146 metres from 18 carries and George made 92 metres and 14 tackles from the bench.

When winger Campbell Graham copped an unfriendly bounce, Tom Davies picked up the spoils to open the scoring for Wigan in the sixth minute.

The Rabbitohs hit back when Cook and Farah combined to send Tom Burgess over before Graham crossed to give his side a 8-4 lead going into the second half. A bullocking effort out wide from Richie Kennar made it 12-4.

Davies' second try halved the halftime margin while the only Rabbitohs points of the second stanza came when Cook ran to the line and Mark Nicholls offloaded to send five-eighth Adam Doueihi over to make it 18-8 with the kick.

"The result went our way but I was just pleased with the experience the younger guys got," Seibold said after his first game in charge of the Rabbitohs.

"I was really proud of the way guys likes (stand-in skipper Jason Clark), Robbie Farah and Cook and Tom and George held that group together because I think there was only four guys with more than 50 NRL games experience out there."

Seibold said Cook and Farah were still competing for the starting dummy-half spot.

"I thought Faz (Farah) did a really good job playing in an unfamiliar position in the first-half," he said.

"In the second half when he went to dummy-half, he worked really hard defensively and got us around the park. We made quite a few changes at halftime so it was a bit clunky there in the second half.

"Cooky showed some touches as well. He got out of dummy-half a few times and split the Wigan defence."

Australian Associated Press