{"id":291973,"date":"2025-11-18T06:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291973\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T06:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:10:09","slug":"eliesa-katoa-ruled-out-for-2026-season-melbourne-storm-tonga-head-knocks-brain-surgery-confirmed-news-videos-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291973\/","title":{"rendered":"Eliesa Katoa ruled out for 2026 season, Melbourne Storm, Tonga, head knocks, brain surgery, confirmed, news, videos, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Storm enforcer Eliesa Katoa has been ruled out of the 2026 season after a trio of horror head knocks saw him hospitalised and in need of brain surgery.<\/p>\n

Melbourne released a statement on Tuesday afternoon, confirming the gun back rower \u201cwon\u2019t be available for the 2026 season\u201d.<\/p>\n

Katoa has also returned from Auckland to Australia, where he has undergone \u201cfurther testing and assessment\u201d before being released from hospital.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEli\u2019s health and wellbeing remain our number one priority,\u201d Storm chief executive Justin Rodski said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is great to have him home safely and under the care of our Club doctor and local specialists. He is improving each day and looking forward to continuing his rehabilitation from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn consultation with our doctor and neuro specialists, Eli will not return to training this pre-season and won\u2019t be available for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

Eliesa Katoa has been ruled out for the 2026 season.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a long road ahead in his recovery and his focus will be on returning to full health before considering any form of return to training.<\/p>\n

\u201cEli is a much loved and respected member of our team and club. The Storm Family will rally around him and support him through his recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

While playing for Tonga, Katoa had to be administered urgent medical help on the sideline after suffering a seizure before being rushed to hospital in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

He then underwent surgery relieve pressure on his brain, with the situation prompting an NRL investigation, with those findings yet to be revealed.<\/p>\n

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Despite the ugly situation, Katoa\u2019s uncle Reverend Setelo Katoa spoke on Tongan radio station, PMN Tonga and revealed his family\u2019s stance on the ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically they\u2019re saying it\u2019s not the coaches fault, it\u2019s not the doctors, they\u2019re saying that Eli wanted to play and represent his country,\u2019\u2019 PMN radio host Nicholas Pulu explained to News Corp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not blaming anyone. He wanted to play. That\u2019s the pride of one\u2019s country. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat they will do whatever it takes to represent, even if it means putting your body literally on the line and I think that\u2019s the sacrifice that he\u2019s put himself in that unfortunately in this case, he\u2019s ended up injured.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Storm enforcer Eliesa Katoa has been ruled out of the 2026 season after a trio of horror head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-291973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291973","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=291973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}