Connacht head coach Andy Friend has admitted that Abraham Papali'i's disciplinary issues mean that the powerful No 8 is running the risk of not having a future in the game.

Papali'i was sent off for the third time since joining the club last summer after the powerful No 8 was given his marching orders during Connacht's Rainbow Cup defeat to Benetton last Saturday.

The latest misdemeanour came on the back of the Kiwi being shown a red card 25 minutes into his debut against Munster for a high tackle on Conor Murray, which resulted in a three-game ban.

In only his third game back from suspension against Zebre in November, Papali'i was sent off again and subsequently slapped with a five-week ban.

Despite Friend and the Connacht coaches working tirelessly with Papali'i on his tackle technique, he came off the bench in Treviso last Saturday and was sent off for a third time – again for a high shot.

Papali'i, a rugby league convert, is currently awaiting to see what his latest punishment will be, but Friend has warned that he must improve his technique before it's too late.

"It depends on how much time he's going to get off, but he'll have a bit of time, I'd imagine,” Friend said.

“The bottom line is that he needs to change his tackle technique. If he doesn't, well, he won't keep playing rugby union.

“It's as simple as that, because you can't have a player continually getting red cards. The sanctions are going to become bigger on him and it's impossible to stay in the game if you do that.

"He's very aware of that, we're very aware of that. We've got to use whatever time we've got where he won't be playing - hopefully it's around the six-week mark, I reckon is what he will probably get - to take out the poor habits that he's got from his rugby league days and get him tackling low.

"When he does tackle low, as we've seen, he can be devastating, so we've got to break a habit that's there at the moment and we've got to do that pretty quickly."

After announcing the signing of Tongan lock Leva Fifita yesterday, Friend confirmed that, as things stand, Connacht do not intend to make any more signings ahead of the new season.