“All it needs is what happened with ‘La’ he’s laying on the ground,the slight wrong way and pushed from behind or whatever it may be and it can be catastrophic.”

The team travelled to Brisbane on Friday and Foketi’s injury has allowed young gun Max Jorgensen to move from the bench to start at fullback with Joey Walton slotting into inside centre.

Coleman understands the importance of managing Jorgensen,who endured a knee injury that ended last year’s Super Rugby season prematurely and a broken ankle that ended his World Cup ambitions,leaving him desperate to return to play.

“You have to walk the dog on a leash that hasn’t been out for a while,it’s hard to hang on,yeah,that’s Max,” a smiling Coleman said.

“So we’re just going to just trust the process and there’s nothing medically stopping him from playing and he’s come through his rehab with flying colours.”

After a poor pre-season that includedsuccessive defeats to the Rebels and Saturday’s opponents,prop Harry Johnson-Holmes is motivated to get an early win on the road for Foketi.

“In terms of impacting our prep – look,the boys are worried,” Johnson-Holmes said. “We’re concerned about ‘La’,but I think the best way we can honour – the tragic event of him missing out on this week and,potentially,a couple more games – is to put it to the side and park it and give him something to smile about when he’s in his neck brace.”

Watch all the action from the2024 Super Rugby Pacific season,kicking off on February 23,with every match ad-free,live and on demand onStan Sport.