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Katoa, 26, last played a game back on November 2 when he suffered several head knocks during a Test for Tonga against New Zealand, including a heavy collision before the match that should have seen him ruled out.<\/p>\n
But the two-time Dally M Second-Rower of the Year was allowed to play and suffered two more blows to the head which eventually saw him rushed to hospital with bleeding on the brain which required emergency surgery.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been an emotional recovery for him and everyone at the club, and while he\u2019s been able to take part in some light training drills over the months, the Storm have confirmed he still has a long way to go to ever play again. <\/p>\n
\u201cEli won\u2019t play this year,\u201d Storm chief executive Justin Rodski told the NewsWire.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still going through his recovery process and continuing to try to build up through a training point of view, but it\u2019s all non-contact.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll continue to work with his specialists and neurosurgeons around a plan for phasing him back into more and more training.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of when that is and whether or not that includes contact training in the near future, we simply do not know so we just have to be patient and continue to listen to the medical experts.<\/p>\n
Storm victorious 62-point thriller | 03:36<\/p>\n
\u201cEli is so keen to get back out there and play. He\u2019s at training and the club every day, but we can\u2019t rush his return and we need to ensure that we\u2019ve done everything right and followed the medical process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think over the coming months we\u2019ll start to get a clearer picture on what that could look like, and hopefully there is a path to return to some contact training at some point down the track. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut at this stage we\u2019re still waiting to get that confirmation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been getting around him and giving him all the support he needs because it\u2019s hard for any player being on the sidelines. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor Eli, having the uncertainty on what that actually looks like makes it even more difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have more respect for a person because he\u2019s such a wonderful leader in the organisation. We\u2019ve missed him on the field, but it\u2019s been great to have him around off the field. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all hopeful that we get some positive news over the coming months that there\u2019s a plan for his return.\u201d<\/p>\n
Craig confirms Coates OUT for the Season | 09:03<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, fellow Storm forward Tui Kamikamica continues to push for an NRL return after he suffered a stroke following a round four loss to the Cowboys.<\/p>\n
The veteran has resumed training, and there is a feeling that he could be back playing this year as long as he gets approval from health experts. <\/p>\n
\u201cTui is so keen to get back out there, but we\u2019re waiting on further medical advice to give him the all clear,\u201d Rodski said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s back into training, he\u2019s around the club, he\u2019s energetic and passionate as ever to return, but he\u2019s gone through a serious ordeal so we need to make sure that we\u2019ve done everything right to tick every box from a medical point of view to clear him to be able to play again this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we don\u2019t know when that might be, and he\u2019s still going through some testing.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we\u2019ve got that medical approval and clearance, he\u2019s just going to continue to train and be around the club.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eli Katoa won\u2019t play for the Storm again this year, with the superstar edge forward to continue working…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-718621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718621","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=718621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}