{"id":559806,"date":"2026-03-23T21:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/559806\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T21:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:58:10","slug":"nrl-news-craig-bellamy-reveals-eli-katoas-role-at-melbourne-in-worrying-update-on-stars-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/559806\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news: Craig Bellamy reveals Eli Katoa’s role at Melbourne in worrying update on star’s future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy<\/a> has made a shock admission about Eli Katoa<\/a>‘s potential NRL<\/a> comeback, as the star forward continues his recovery from a serious brain injury. Katoa was ruled out of the entire 2026 season<\/a> after undergoing brain surgery late last year, having been rushed to hospital after successive head knocks while playing for Tonga in the Pacific Championships in November.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old has since returned to training with the Storm and has been working closely alongside Melbourne’s coaching staff. It had been suggested that Katoa was working towards a long-awaited comeback to the NRL in 2027, but Bellamy made the bombshell admission on Channel Seven\u2019s Agenda Setters rugby league program on Monday night that Katoa may never play again.<\/p>\n

\"Pictured<\/p>\n

Storm coach Craig Bellamy admits he’s unsure whether Eli Katoa will ever play in the NRL again after the star forward underwent brain surgery last year. Pic: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s doing really well at the moment,\u201d Bellamy said after being asked about Katoa’s recovery. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019ll play next year… I don\u2019t know if he\u2019ll play again. The doctors haven\u2019t made that decision, and I don\u2019t know when that decision will get made to be quite honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI imagine after a certain amount of time he\u2019ll have more tests and go from there. It was a major injury, and we want him to live the rest of his life in a normal way, so fingers crossed. But we\u2019d love to have him back playing footy and playing with us. He was one hell of a player. Last year he won our player of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eli Katoa given a role to help develop the Storm’s forwards<\/p>\n

Bellamy’s admission certainly comes as a major shock. But the veteran coach went on to explain the role Katoa has been playing with the Storm’s coaching staff to help develop some of the club’s forwards, such as Cooper Clarke, Joe Chan and Ativalu Lisati – who have really stood up in the absence of their star teammate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve given him a role with our edge back rowers to take them under his wing \u2013 young Cooper Clarke,\u201d Bellamy said. \u201cWe have to give Eli a lot of wraps for that \u2013 even with Joey Chan and Valu (Lisati), he\u2019s helped them out a whole heap as well. That\u2019s the good news.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"On<\/p>\n

Sidelined Storm star Eli Katoa (L) has been working closely with Melbourne’s forwards such as Joe Chan (R) to help develop their games. Pic: Getty<\/p>\n

Bellamy’s update on Katoa comes just a month after the 2025 Dally M second-rower of the year explained that his recovery was going well and he hadn’t given up hope of making a comeback to the NRL. \u201cI just want to let everyone know that I\u2019m healthy now,\u201d he said on the Storm’s website. \u201cI\u2019ve been training hard the last two or three months with no symptoms, so I\u2019m going great at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Storm’s depth will be further tested for Saturday night’s clash against the Cowboys in Townsville, with Lisati now expected to be sidelined for four weeks with a calf injury. Melbourne are looking to bounce back from their Round 3 loss against Brisbane, which marked the Broncos’ first win at AAMI Park in 10 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy has made a shock admission about Eli Katoa‘s potential NRL comeback, as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,8089,80681,152166,4466,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-559806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-craig-bellamy","tag-eli-katoa","tag-katoa","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559806","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=559806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}