The mild-mannered Rooster who folds opponents ‘like a deck chair’

Lindsay Collins has been flattened by more than a few people in his career. It comes with the territory following a decade in the NRL.

What he didn’t expect was for a baby-faced, 19-year-old Roosters recruit to be one of them.

Enter Salesi Foketi: the Auckland-raised second-rower whose growing list of victims includes teammates Collins and Victor Radley– aka Victor the inflictor – as well as those who line up opposite him.

“He’s gotten stuck into me at training a couple of times,” conceded Collins with a smile.

The now 21-year-old Foketi was only just dipping his toes into the waters of first grade when he took on the Queensland and Australia representative, who was left on his back and wondering, “who the hell is this kid?”

“It would have been his [Foketi’s] first year, and it was the first session of pre-season, and I ran at him, and he just folded me like a deck chair,” Collins said.

“I ended up on my back and everything. It was a real dagger to ego as well. I didn’t know who this kid was, and he’s just folded me. It was a little introduction into who Salesi is.”

Foketi’s lethal defence is a far cry from the mild-mannered man you get off the field – a man who attributes his on-field motivation to his faith, and one bible verse in particular: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.”

But, as many great rugby league players do, Foketi has mastered the art of flicking the switch.

“He’s fearless,” Radley said. “I was suspended years ago, he was in the academy, and I had to wrestle him.

“I remember he had this afro. He was going after it in a wrestle session – he didn’t have to go that hard, but he was – I had to try and beat him so I wasn’t embarrassed in front of everyone.

“He’s quiet, but he’s got that look in his eye – he’s fierce.”

Opposition playmakers are often privy to that look. Last week, it was Braydon Trindall. This week, it’s Isaiya Katoa, who Foketi man-handled on his way to scoring in the Roosters’ 26-12 loss to the Dolphins a month ago.

The Tricolours will need that wrecking-ball style from him this Friday night for their preliminary final against the Dolphins at Suncorp Stadium.

The guidance from coaches like club legend Boyd Cordner helped Foketi refine his craft. But Foketi says ther foundations of his football were built back home in Auckland by his father Solomone.

In the era of six-agains, those classic foundations can sometimes be forgotten, says Collins, but Foketi has found the balance between the speed of the modern game and the run-hard, tackle-hard mentality of old-fashioned rugby league.

“He’s got beautiful tackle technique,” Collins said. “Where he sort of gets under that ball, and it’s probably something that we’ve lost a little bit as a game over the last couple of years with the speed and the game, rule changes and stuff like that.

“But it’s more technical and stuff now, but someone with that style of tackle and to back himself … it’s good for a team, it’s good for our team when we see someone bending their back to put someone on their back.”

Foketi was trusted with the Roosters No.11 jersey when veteran back-rower Angus Crichton required minor surgery on his right foot, but he’s earned his spot in his absence.

Crichton returned from the injury and played 30 minutes off the bench in a kamikaze-style role for the Roosters in their semi-final win against Cronulla last week, but, after eight years with the Tricolours, will depart the club for rugby at the season’s end.

It’s a changing of the guard for the Tricolours, whose team is increasingly made up of its academy recruits each year.

But the club is in safe hands, according to utility Connor Watson, who is another of the departing players in 2027.

“You’re losing a player like Gus [Crichton] and you think, what are they going to do?” Watson said.

“But I think the way he’s [Salesi] come along this year … The last two years, he’s really just worked out his style of football in first grade, and what works for him and how to play consistently.

“His last two months of footy for us, ever since Gus got injured, and they moved him into the back row, he’s been unbelievable – the tone he sets defensively and then just what he adds with the football. He’s certainly talented.”