Kieran Foran working hard in New Zealand to save NRL career

EXCLUSIVE: Kieran Foran, without any certainty of when, or if, he will return to the NRL is working five days a week without pay as he looks to save his career.

HELLO, this is Kieran Foran, will you be part of the New Zealand Warriors in 2017?

Foran, without any certainty of when, or if, he will return to the NRL, picks up the phone to ask the one question he only wishes he could answer himself.

Working five days a week without pay inside the Warriors membership office in Auckland, the 26-year-old dials phone numbers listed on a bundle of A4 pages.

“We hope you’re doing fine,’’ is what Foran has heard more than once from the stranger’s voice down the line.

Sometimes, Foran’s calls go unanswered. The former Kiwi Test captain always leaves a voice message.

As Warriors chief executive Jim Doyle explains to The Sunday Telegraph, not hanging-up is crucial.

“We’ve got to keep him busy and keep him engaging with different people,’’ Doyle says.

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Kieran Foran is putting in a big effort across the ditch.

“With some people he’ll have to say: ‘Yes, it’s really Kieran Foran.’

“With others he’ll have a long conversation with them about how he grew up here and how he’s looking forward to getting back.

“Other days, if he’s not phoning members, he’ll go out and visit a school with our community development staff. He’ll chat with kids, which is keeping him busy and us helping him engage with the people.

“Unfortunately when you get yourself into the condition that he got himself into, he got himself­ ­pretty low.

“I remember talking to him three, four months ago and he wasn’t the same person he was previously.

“He’s certainly made a big, big, change. Even in the last month, he’s getting more engaged and more confident about himself.’’

Kieran Foran is putting in a big effort across the ditch.

It has now been seven months since Foran was rushed to hospital in an ambulance after overdosing on prescription medication.

And two months since the former premiership-winner with Manly and Parramatta five-eighth signed a 12-month contract with the Warriors — which the NRL are yet to register.

In weekly contact with NRL Integrity Unit boss Nick Weeks, Doyle would love a decision, one way or the other, by Christmas.

“But it would’ve been over a month ago that I said to him: ‘You need to be aware, this is going to take time.’

“It’s not something that although you and we would like it to happen tomorrow, it’s not going too, we just have to be patient.’’

ESCAPING SYDNEY

Foran moved to Sydney from New Zealand with his family when he was 10.

Now 26, he’s spent more of his life in Australia than he has his home country. Foran had knocked back serious overtures from Doyle and the Warriors prior to his signing from Manly to the Eels halfway through 2015, not wanting to uproot his young family at the time.

But aware what he needed to do to save himself, Foran couldn’t deny Doyle a second time.

“I think what Kieran needs to do, more than anything else, is reset himself,’’ Doyle said.

“Changing environment is one of the easiest things to do to reset because there’s instant change.

“If he’d of stayed in Sydney it’s harder to say ‘I want my life on a different path.’

“Coming over here gets him on that different path instantly and that’s the best step for him. To get him thinking differently, he’s living in a different place, he’s meeting different people, he’s in a different routine.

“There was an option for him to stay there (Sydney), but he knew and felt that the best thing for him at this point in time in order to get back to what he was a few years ago, was to make that change.’’

Kieran Foran with Warriors winger Manu Vatuvei.

REHABILITATING FORAN

Foran reports to Warriors management every day, both in the gym and the club’s welfare department.

Having undergone shoulder surgery, which required a follow-up operation, Foran is working from a program designed by the club’s physiotherapist which will hopefully see him running within the next fortnight and performing tackling drills by January.

“He’s spending time with the appropriate people (counsellors) to help him, but he’s on a journey to get him to where he used to be,’’ Doyle said.

“He’s working and talking to the coach (Stephen Kearney) every day.

“He’s working with our mental skills performance manager, he comes in to see the physiotherapist first and spends time in there working.

“He’s on the bike, he’s doing weights and strength exercises to build himself up.”

New Warriors coach Stephen Kearney is talking with Kieran Foran every day.

THE CRITICS

League fans, especially success-starved Parramatta fans, didn’t want excuses, they wanted proof. Eels supporters were only getting used to ”one of the biggest signings in the club’s history”, according to blue and gold great Peter Sterling, when Foran was released from his $5 million contract.

And while there is sympathy, there is an equal amount of scepticism and spotlight on the NRL, who will decide if Foran is available for the 2017 season kick-off.

“You’re always going to have people who think positively and negatively,’’ Doyle said.

“We want to see him as a person get himself right. And a big part of that is what he’s used to virtually his whole life, is playing rugby league.

“Therefore, he wants to get back to doing that so he can actually look after his family and get himself right.

“I’ve read some stuff from Parramatta people saying he shouldn’t be registered until his contract with Parramatta came to an end (2019) and he should only be re-registered if he goes back to Parramatta.

“Well, they both mutually agreed to terminate the contract.

“If I’d been the CEO of Parramatta and I felt he was still part of a long-term plan, I would’ve said ‘take the rest of the year off, we’ll suspend your contract, you go away for the rest of the year, we’ll help you and in January the next year if you’ve got your mindset ready and you want to come back to the game, then come back’. But I wouldn’t have said, ‘let’s end this’.’’

Kieran Foran was released from his $5 million contract by the Eels.

LIFE IN LIMBO

Without any assurances from the NRL, Foran has resisted purchasing or even renting a property in Auckland.

Instead, he lives under the roof of his godparents, travelling back to Sydney when he can to visit his two children Emerson and Jordan.

“They’ve (god parents) got a big house, so he’s been living with them. Obviously they’re family and that works for him,’’ Doyle said.

“There’s no point in renting or purchasing if for some reason it doesn’t work out like we hope it does and therefore it’s been a waste of time. He’s in a bit of limbo, in that aspect.’’

RISK MANAGEMENT

Doyle says Foran’s lifeline at the Warriors, which has included providing him with the tools to take control of his life, isn’t about the past three months, or even the next six months.

It’s about the rest of his life.

“His agreement with us will be that there’ll be certain things that he’ll continue on with,’’ Doyle said.

The Warriors are keen to see Kieran Foran get his life back on track.

“Because for us it’s not just about ‘OK, let’s do what we need to do to get him registered and soon as he gets registered say that’s it’.

“We want to have, on the field, the best possible Kieran Foran and for us to have that we have to make sure we’re constantly working with him and helping him on that journey.

“Anybody who goes through some negative times, all of a sudden we don’t wake up in the morning and everything is rosy. He’ll have some good days and some not so good days.

“We’ve got to be there for him, in both, because if there’s no one there for him when it’s not so good, then rather than pick himself up again, he’ll go backwards.’’

Originally published as Kieran Foran working hard in New Zealand to save NRL career