{"id":571556,"date":"2025-11-15T07:31:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T07:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/571556\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T07:31:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T07:31:21","slug":"tonga-star-eli-katoas-playing-future-uncertainty-amid-update-on-brain-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/571556\/","title":{"rendered":"Tonga star Eli Katoa’s playing future uncertainty amid update on brain injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Eli\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too early to know whether Tonga international Eli Katoa will be able to play again after needing brain surgery in the aftermath of a Pacific Championships clash.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Katoa suffered three separate head knocks in the highly anticipated autumn Test against Samoa in New Zealand and despite passing two HIAs, he suffered a seizure on the sidelines. He was rushed to hospital and had to go under the knife to relieve the pressure on his brain.<\/p>\n

The NRL is investigating the incident, with question marks about the Melbourne Storm man being allowed to put himself in harm\u2019s way after the first two head knocks, the first of which came before kick-off while warming up.<\/p>\n

Katoa is still in hospital in Auckland, but he will soon be allowed to leave and head back to Melbourne to continue his recovery, Storm CEO Justin Rodski has confirmed.<\/p>\n

Whether he will be able to play again, though, is yet to be determined.<\/p>\n

Melbourne Storm CEO gives Eli Katoa update<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very early. We haven\u2019t even looked at that at this point,\u2019\u2019 Rodski said regarding Katoa\u2019s chances of playing again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just focused on his recovery, his health and his short-term (release from hospital).<\/p>\n

\u201cTo even speculate at this point in time, it\u2019s far too early.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the process of working out when he gets out of hospital in New Zealand, hopefully it\u2019s in the next 24 to 48-hours and then the view would be to get him back to Melbourne next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan would be that he returns to a Melbourne hospital for a period of time for further assessment to see some specialists, to be under the care of our (club) doctor here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I think at that point they\u2019ll look at what his discharge looks like, what his recovery looks like from there, whether that\u2019s heading home, whether that\u2019s heading into some sort of rehabilitation centre, it\u2019s probably too early to tell on that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The back-rower started his career with New Zealand Warriors but has been one of the stars of Melbourne Storm\u2019s pack for the last three years, making 72 appearances and scoring 32 tries. He was named in the 2025 Dally M NRL Team of the Year.<\/p>\n

Serious About Rugby League has launched a brand new podcast which can be watched in full on our YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s too early to know whether Tonga international Eli Katoa will be able to play again after needing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-571556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115552550573285756","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}