{"id":434872,"date":"2026-01-24T17:32:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T17:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/434872\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T17:32:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T17:32:37","slug":"dolphins-star-felise-kaufusi-issues-nrl-plea-after-melbourne-storm-lose-two-players-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/434872\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins star Felise Kaufusi issues NRL plea after Melbourne Storm lose two players"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe will miss seeing it if he hangs the boots up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Papenhuyzen\u2019s raw confession \u2013 in which he said he was \u201crattled\u201d and left wondering at \u201cwhat cost\u201d does he continue to play \u2013 comes at a time when the NRL is desperate to crack down on concussion issues, particularly following the horrific incident involving Eliesa Katoa.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Storm forward will miss the entire 2026 season, having suffered a brain bleed from multiple head knocks before and during a clash for Tonga against New Zealand in the Pacific Championships.<\/p>\n

\"Felise<\/p>\n

Felise Kaufusi (left) has paid tribute to Ryan Papenhuyzen (right), and called for players to consider concerns around head trauma more seriously.<\/p>\n

Intervention from independent doctors throughout contests has polarised pundits, with some arguing there was too much interference \u2013 particularly in cases where players are found to not be concussed after assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen the stuff that went on with Eli Katoa as well which is really extreme. It definitely opened my mind a bit more, even me growing up I was like \u2018what\u2019s a head knock? I\u2019ll be right, just let me get back on\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s just the adrenaline in the footy sense, and it needs to come from a source outside to just take it out of our own hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think it\u2019s just a little knock, you want to be there out playing and don\u2019t want to miss games for it, but in the long run \u2013 especially when you start to have families \u2013 you\u2019ve got to think outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cFooty only lasts 10 years if you\u2019re lucky, and then you\u2019ve got the rest of your life to live. It\u2019s the brain, you can\u2019t study that until you\u2019re a carcass, so definitely a lot of importance needs to go into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe will miss seeing it if he hangs the boots up.\u201d Papenhuyzen\u2019s raw confession \u2013 in which he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-434872","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\/434872","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=434872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}