{"id":190492,"date":"2025-10-04T23:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T23:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/190492\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T23:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T23:52:09","slug":"melbourne-storm-star-eliesa-katoa-reveals-heartache-as-mum-forced-to-miss-nrl-grand-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/190492\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne Storm star Eliesa Katoa reveals heartache as mum forced to miss NRL grand final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eliesa Katoa has revealed his heartache at being unable to fly his mother from Tonga to watch him in the NRL<\/a> grand final as the Melbourne edge forward looks to claim his first premiership.<\/p>\n

Katoa said visa processing times and logistical challenges of getting his mother Akanesi to Sydney in time for Sunday\u2019s clash with Brisbane had proved too hard a task.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old hails from a village called Koulo on the island of Lifuka, 200km away from the Pacific nation\u2019s capital of Nuku\u2019alofa.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today \"Download<\/a><\/p>\n

Katoa has previously credited his mother as being his biggest influence after the death of his father when he was just 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately mum can\u2019t make it, but I do have a few family members coming from New Zealand and a cousin who\u2019s coming from America,\u201d he told AAP.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very grateful they\u2019ll be there but mum\u2019s stuck at home. I think I\u2019ll go back home as soon as the season finishes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a couple of things that I needed to do for her to come over here and I haven\u2019t done that but hopefully one day she\u2019ll get to see me in a grand final.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a few messages from (family in Koulo) and they\u2019re very proud and excited and they are going to get together and watch the grand final together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back-rower Katoa, who was named in the Dally M team of the year earlier this week after scoring 13 tries in 25 games, was part of the Storm side that fell to Penrith in last season\u2019s decider.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been here last year and came up short, but I feel like we\u2019ve been building to this,\u201d Katoa said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the emotion within the group, everyone understands that feeling from last year and we don\u2019t want to have that feeling again.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we also don\u2019t want to really think about it too much because we have a different team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katoa singled out front-rower Stefano Utoikamanu for helping propel Melbourne into premiership contention with his late-season form.<\/p>\n

The usually mild-mannered Utoikamanu has shown no fear of Brisbane this week, labelling Broncos players as \u201cstuck up\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been amazing and I feel like after the Origin period he came back and he\u2019s been a different beast,\u201d Katoa said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know he\u2019s got that in him and I feel like he has been going good for us and we will need another big game from him on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t really say a lot, but whatever he says I\u2019ve got his back.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Broncos coach gives veteran mate chance to bury grand final demons<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eliesa Katoa has revealed his heartache at being unable to fly his mother from Tonga to watch him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,4428,4466,761,762,158,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-190492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brisbane-broncos","11":"tag-melbourne-storm","12":"tag-national-rugby-league","13":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","14":"tag-nrl","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}