Canterbury coach Dean Pay has no plans of trying to offload injury-plagued playmaker Kieran Foran as part of the Bulldogs’ ongoing bid to clean up their salary-cap mess.
Contracted until the end of the 2021 NRL season, Foran is raking in more than a million dollars a season despite having played just 22 games since arriving at Belmore at the start of last year.
All up, the New Zealand international has managed only 48 appearances over the past five years – a far cry from the 148 he played during his premiership-winning days at Manly from 2009-15.
Having named Foran to start for the past two weeks, Pay is finally resigned to the fact the Bulldogs’ marquee – and highest paid – player needs time to recover from nagging ankle and hamstring injuries.
But the coach is not giving up on the 29-year-old.
“Well, he’s contracted here so that’s what where it stands,” Pay said on Thursday.
“Once he gets on the field and starts putting some games together, that’s what we’re looking forward to and we’re going to give him every opportunity to do that.
The most recent of Foran’s 10 appearances this season came six weeks ago.
“He’s progressing okay. He’s just had a bit of a issue with a couple of his leg injuries,” Pay said.
“So at the moment he needs another week. He can’t take a trick at the moment. I really feel for him.
“It’s frustrating for him, it’s frustrating for us as well. We’d love to have him out on the field, but he needs to be 100 per cent before we put him out there.”