{"id":283449,"date":"2025-11-14T07:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T07:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283449\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T07:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T07:11:17","slug":"lehi-is-hurting-hopoate-defends-son-after-sickening-katoa-collision-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283449\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Lehi is hurting\u2019: Hopoate defends son after sickening Katoa collision – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manly Sea Eagles<\/a> star Lehi Hopoate<\/a> has been praised for a lot in his young career so far, however, has unfortunately found himself at the centre of a lot of hate in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Hopoate has been revealed to be \u201churting\u201d after being unfairly targeted online following his accidental collision which left Tonga<\/a> teammate Eliesa Katoa<\/a> requiring brain surgery, according to his father John Hopoate.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred earlier this month during Tonga’s warm-up before facing New Zealand<\/a>, with Hopoate and Katoa colliding heavily while both contesting a high ball.<\/p>\n

The footage, captured by TV cameras but not made available to Tonga<\/a> officials, showed Katoa being knocked out by the impact.<\/p>\n

Katoa suffered three separate head knocks across the warm-up and match, later enduring seizure symptoms on the sideline before being rushed to hospital in Auckland.<\/p>\n

He required fluid to be drained from his brain and remains under medical care.<\/p>\n

\"NRLMELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – MAY 11: Eliesa Katoa of the Storm scores a try during the round 10 NRL match between Melbourne Storm and Wests Tigers at AAMI Park, on May 11, 2025, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Mike Owen\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Despite the collision being ruled accidental, Hopoate said his son has been bombarded with abuse on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cLehi is hurting, 100 per cent he is, he’s feeling for Eli,\u201d John told the Sydney Morning Herald.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s been copping it from people asking, \u2018Why did you take out your teammate?’<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were both going for the ball, it was completely accidental.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopoate also revealed Lehi hasn’t seen most of the online criticism, with the family encouraging him to stay off social media as Katoa recovers.<\/p>\n

\"PacificLehi Hopoate in action. (Photo: Flickr- @NAPARAZZI)<\/p>\n

Tonga<\/a> coach Kristian Woolf<\/a> stayed in New Zealand<\/a> for nine days to support Katoa and has been receiving daily updates from Melbourne Storm<\/a> medics and NRL<\/a> doctors.<\/p>\n

Katoa is hopeful of returning to Australia<\/a> next week once cleared.<\/p>\n

Despite the backlash, the rugby league community has rallied around Hopoate, with players including New Zealand<\/a> prop Naufahu Whyte<\/a> publicly defending the 20-year-old and urging fans to show compassion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manly Sea Eagles star Lehi Hopoate has been praised for a lot in his young career so far,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-283449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283449","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=283449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}