{"id":388271,"date":"2026-01-03T04:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388271\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T04:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:35:10","slug":"nrl-star-eli-katoa-shares-photos-of-return-to-fitness-after-brain-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388271\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL star Eli Katoa shares photos of return to fitness after brain surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eli Katoa\u2019s NRL<\/a> career might be on hold after brain surgery but the Melbourne Storm<\/a> star is still putting in the work alongside his teammates.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old forward has been ruled out for the 2026 season following his high-profile brain bleed<\/a> suffered while playing for Tonga in the Pacific Championships late last year.<\/p>\n

He suffered three head knocks in 90 minutes and required oxygen on the sidelines, before undergoing emergency surgery. Katoa spent more than two weeks in a New Zealand hospital before being allowed to return to Melbourne.<\/p>\n

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

The NRL has since proposed two-year bans for three members of Tonga\u2019s medical staff<\/a>, last month revealing they had \u201ca number of serious concerns\u201d over alleged possible breaches surrounding Katoa\u2019s treatment.<\/p>\n

While that process rumbles on, Katoa is moving on with his recovery.<\/p>\n

Just this week he shared footage of himself running \u2014 with a smile on his face \u2014 and exercising at the gym.<\/p>\n

\"EliEli Katoa shared a photo of himself running and exercising in the gym this week. Credit: Instagram<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get to choose everything that happens to you, but you always get to choose who you become in response,\u201d Katoa\u2019s caption read.<\/p>\n

On Saturday he was pictured after a training run with teammates Sua Fa\u2019alogo and Tui Kamikamica at Gosch\u2019s Paddock next to the Storm\u2019s AAMI Park home ground.<\/p>\n

The positive sight comes after Melbourne chief executive Justin Rodski said Katoa had been \u201cstruggling to process\u201d the news that he had been sidelined for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis passion and love is rugby league, and, for that to be taken away from him, is pretty devastating for him,\u201d Rodski said.<\/p>\n

Katoa, named to the Dally M team of the year in 2024 and 2025, later shared his hope to return to the NRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it will be some time yet before a decision is made on his future with Rodski previously noting Katoa is facing a year on the sidelines \u201cat a minimum\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m back at home at the moment and I\u2019m in a good place now,\u201d Katoa wrote in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy recovery is going well and hopefully I can keep ticking all of the boxes that I need!<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to the Storm fans, in God\u2019s timing \u2018I\u2019ll be back soon\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katoa has also continued to mix it with former Melbourne teammate Nelson Asofa-Solomona as the big man trains for his professional boxing debut.<\/p>\n

Asofa-Solomona split from the Storm at the end of the season after two seasons blighted by missing the 2024 and 2025 grand finals through suspension.<\/p>\n

He will step into the ring against fellow former NRL player Jeremy Latimore this month.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eli Katoa\u2019s NRL career might be on hold after brain surgery but the Melbourne Storm star is still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,4466,761,762,158,588,85],"class_list":["post-388271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388271","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=388271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}