Someone on the screaming eagles podcast brought up a great point that counters this
If we swapped out Harper for Suli this week due to a few (1-3) bad games after working his ass off to make the side and contribute toward our top 4 run he'd be shattered, particularly if we still lost.
Especially considering Suli is leaving the club. Harper's loyalty has been earned and Suli failed to earn loyalty with his form over the years. Harper knows he must learn to get up for these big finals games and the only way to learn is to have games like he did last week. If we don't give him this opportunity to learn this year, I think it stands a big chance of affecting his 2022 confidence.
Besides, many of us remember suli's best game vs souths in the 2019 finals. However, looking back through the highlights his poor defencive reads still let in 2 tries that day. That risk offsets his attacking potential and we have enough strike as is when our forwards do the hard work up the middle and create both time and space through fatiguing the opposition
Suli is a good 18th man, and potentially a good number 4, but now is not the time, he left it too late to earn his spot for mine.