\u201cseizure activity\u201d and brain bleeding<\/a> following three head knocks during his side\u2019s loss to New Zealand in the Pacific Championships. <\/p>\nKatoa posted from hospital on Monday morning and the Storm confirmed in a statement that he was in a stable condition after undergoing surgery on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Tonga coach Kristian Woolf defended his side\u2019s medical staff after the game and said that everything had been \u201cdone by the book\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pre-game footage showed Katoa suffer a sickening head knock with teammate Lehi Hopoate which many people assumed would have forced him from the game.<\/p>\n
But Tongan staff reportedly didn\u2019t perform a head injury assessment, with Katoa able to take his place in the starting side before he was forced off following another head knock in the ninth minute.<\/p>\n
Katoa ultimately passed that HIA but came from the field midway through the second half where his health rapidly deteriorated following his third head knock in the space of less than two hours.<\/p>\n
The Storm back-rower required an oxygen mask and was taken from the field in a medi-cab before he was rushed to hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnsuring a safe environment for players is the remit of the NRL,\u201d Rugby League Players Association chief operating officer Luke Ellis said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo along with our own enquiries, we will be trusting them to work through this and understand what occurred.\u201c<\/p>\n
Players will never voluntarily rule themselves out of a game with so much on the line, and that\u2019s why Samoan veteran Junior Paulo has implored medical officials to take that out of their hands. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely does (confront you) as a player. Prayers go out to Eli and his family through this tough period,\u201d he said in Sydney ahead of Sunday\u2019s Pacific Championships final against New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe as footy players will probably never say no to turning up for your country and getting out there and playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut whoever this falls down to, there are protocols around that and should be followed \u2013 and they probably were followed. In terms of putting your health before your job, that\u2019s probably the main outcome that we really want to take out of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not to put pressure on anyone who is in that role to make a call, but I think that\u2019s what probably their role is to do to look after the health and safety of the player first.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost rugby league players aren\u2019t going to say no (when asked if they don\u2019t want to play) or turn down the opportunity to represent your country or play in the NRL in general.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our passion and why we do it so it\u2019s a hard one to stand on. But like I said, there are protocols in place for why you probably shouldn\u2019t be allowed to return to the field, and that\u2019s for the health concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teammate Jarome Luai held a similar view. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t there and I\u2019m not sure what kind of state he was in during the match, but it\u2019s heartbreaking to hear and it\u2019s a plea to look after our players and to ultimately look after yourself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Originally published as \u2018A plea to look after our players\u2019: Rep stars weigh in following terrifying Eli Katoa incident<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two of Samoa\u2019s biggest stars have implored medical officials across the game to look after players by ensuring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,80681,12979,4536,761,762,158,130405,85,17711,18559],"class_list":{"0":"post-260135","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-eli-katoa","11":"tag-injuries","12":"tag-junior-paulo","13":"tag-national-rugby-league","14":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","15":"tag-nrl","16":"tag-pacific-championships","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-storm","19":"tag-tonga"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260135","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=260135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}