Warriors CEO Jim Doyle is confident the club's marquee off-season signing is 100 percent ready, both physically and mentally for a return to the NRL.
Five-eight Kieran Foran will play his first game for the club against the St George Dragons on Sunday [NZT] after an almost year-long layoff through a shoulder injury and well documented health issues.
The club signed the 26-year-old to a one-year contact in September last year five months after Foran was granted a release by Parramatta to deal with personal issues involving his mental health and connections to the Sydney gambling underworld.
The NRL de-registered Foran, and he has had to jump through multiple hoops - including psychological assessments - for the league to allow him back into the game.
Doyle says there is no doubt in his mind, or Foran's, that he is ready to go.
"He wouldn't be playing if he wasn't ready," Doyle told Andrew Gourdie and Jim Kayes on RadioLIVE's Sunday Sport.
"There is no point in risking someone who isn't ready to play and he hasn't played in almost a year.
"There is no doubt he will be rusty because he hasn't played in such a long time, but there is no way he wants to play and not perform to his best If he wasn't ready we would have given him another week off."
Fans and media alike have called the Dragons game a measuring stick for the Warriors with Foran's return and a comeback for skipper Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, who missed the loss against the Bulldogs with concussion.
Andrew Gourdie: Kieran Foran - Is he ready?
The pressure those expectations on the club, and Foran need to be 'tempered' according to Doyle.
"Yes he is a pretty good player, one of the best players in the world for a long time, but he has not played with Shaun (Johnson), Roger (Tuivasa-Sheck) and Isaac (Luke) for a long time.
"It's not just about Kieran it is about the rest of the team as well."
Foran was named on an extended bench by coach Stephen Kearney on Tuesday - but all signs pointed to the former premiership winner making his run-on debut when incumbent playmaker Ata Hingano played reserve grade in Sydney on Saturday.
Confirmation of his debut came late Saturday when the club released a video interview with Foran on their website.
Doyle said the club always thought Foran was a chance to play the Dragons, but with the team named five days before the game, there was no need to heap that pressure on him.
"He had a fair bit of contact [work] to get through on Wednesday and Thursday for us to be convinced he would be 100 percent he was ready. That was the reason he wasn't named at six."
Doyle said he holds expectations on Foran no higher or lower than the rest of the side and coaching staff, as the club look to turn-around a mediocre five-year period and get back into finals football and beyond.
"I have high expectations of the whole team. We are doing everything we can to create a team that the whole country can be proud of.
"He is certainly one ingredient that can contribute to that - you watch him at training and he is a voice he raises everybody else to his level but that doesn't happen overnight it's a very-very tough competition."
The Warriors currently sit in 11th spot on two competition points, while the Dragons sit just inside the top eight with two wins from three games.
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