Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\nEli Katoa required urgent medical attention on the bench on Sunday.Source: Supplied<\/p>\n
Tonga coach Kristian Woolf was adamant that his side\u2019s medical team had done everything by the book, but that will be determined once the NRL\u2019s investigation has concluded. <\/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 inquiries, we will be trusting them to work through this and understand what occurred.\u201c<\/p>\n
Samoan stars were asked for their thoughts ahead of the Pacific Championships final in Sydney this weekend, with the overarching message to doctors to make the tough calls and take any decisions away from players who would do anything to represent their club or country. <\/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 Samoa halfback Jarome Luai said.<\/p>\n
Johnson said the onus was on the medical staff to rule Katoa out before the game and hopes no player ever has to be put in a similar situation.<\/p>\n
Johnson says Katoa should never have been allowed to play. Picture: Hannah Peters\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cYou felt sick over the incident because he\u2019s not right. It was a bad one \u2013 it wasn\u2019t a mediocre one \u2013 in warm-up,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe takes another one in the first half and is pulled off and I\u2019m like (surely) they take the decision out of his hands as a medical staff and say \u2018no, we\u2019re looking after him\u2019 and don\u2019t even give him the chance of passing this.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they do it and he passes. We\u2019re going \u2018player welfare, look after the bloke\u2019. It\u2019s a game of rugby league, it doesn\u2019t actually matter when you\u2019re talking about the head.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure enough he rolls back out there and he\u2019s doing his job, but I see him take a third one in the second half when he catches a hip (to the head) and I went \u2018no, no, no\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt sick, it was yuck. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not what you want to see, and it\u2019s not what a player should ever go through.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just hope Eli\u2019s all good. I wish it never got to that point, and I hope it never gets to that point for our players ever again because our players will always want to play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby league legend Shaun Johnson has called for people to be sacked in the wake of the terrifying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[19974,64,63,689,5179,43274,145762,40038,152341,153291,38390,4582,779,105270,35446,153294,4816,4742,4466,761,762,673,1736,40041,158,677,153292,3252,123400,153295,159,130928,44329,153289,153288,153293,152337,153290,97437,85,670,153296,660],"class_list":["post-260665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-andrew-voss","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-chief-operating-officer","tag-club-side","tag-deadline-passes","tag-eden-park","tag-eliesa-katoa","tag-head-clashes","tag-head-injury-assessment","tag-jarome-luai","tag-kristian-woolf","tag-legend-calls","tag-lehi-hopoate","tag-luke-ellis","tag-media-release","tag-medical-staff","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-new-south-wales","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-kiwis","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-oxygen-mask","tag-player-movement","tag-player-welfare","tag-reveal-star","tag-rugby-league","tag-rugby-league-ashes-live","tag-rugby-league-legend","tag-rugby-league-players-association","tag-safe-environment","tag-samoan-stars","tag-seizure-activity","tag-seizure-head","tag-shaun-johnson","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-urgent-medical-attention","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260665","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=260665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}