{"id":140802,"date":"2025-11-18T07:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T07:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/140802\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T07:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T07:21:14","slug":"eli-katoa-ruled-out-of-2026-nrl-season-after-repeated-head-knocks-in-kiwis-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/140802\/","title":{"rendered":"Eli Katoa ruled out of 2026 NRL season after repeated head knocks in Kiwis clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">\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<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cEli\u2019s health and wellbeing remain our No 1 priority.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Eli Katoa moments before he was taken to hospital during the Tonga-Kiwis clash this month.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Eli Katoa moments before he was taken to hospital during the Tonga-Kiwis clash this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">\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<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">\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<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">Katoa\u2019s first knock came in the warm-up when he was on the wrong end of an accidental hit from teammate Lehi Hopoate as the two contested a ball, which was caught by TV cameras and later shown on the broadcast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">The independent doctor can only review incidents that occur during games and as that one took place beforehand, it was up to Tonga\u2019s team doctors to review the situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">They declared Katoa fit to play, having not seen the footage, but it\u2019s since been revealed that had they seen the vision, they would have ruled him out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">Katoa copped an accidental elbow from a teammate in the game\u2019s 10th minute and came off for a head injury assessment (HIA) but passed that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">In the second half, he got caught in an awkward position trying to make a tackle on Naufahu Whyte and came off second-best. As it was his second HIA, he was immediately ruled out for the remainder of the match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\">After leaving the field, Katoa was seen slouching in his seat, which prompted urgent medical assistance. He was fitted with an oxygen mask, put on a stretcher and taken away on a medi-cab before being transported to Auckland Hospital where he stayed before returning to Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wzdDHKkU\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/benjamin-plummer\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/benjamin-plummer\/\">Benjamin Plummer<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers sport and breaking news. He has worked for the Herald since 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIn consultation with our doctor and neuro specialists, Eli will not return to training this pre-season and won\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,74,51,3019,18410,95544,106,78,82836,807,82837,14731,2225,14574,4486,111,139,577,69,1118,3111,10056,6327,24684,6926,213,2737,43211,4412,1961,31782,1533],"class_list":["post-140802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-2246","tag-after","tag-auckland","tag-clash","tag-eli","tag-entirety","tag-head","tag-in","tag-katoa","tag-kiwis","tag-knocks","tag-league","tag-loss","tag-miss","tag-month","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nrl","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-out","tag-repeated","tag-rugby","tag-ruled","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-star","tag-suffering","tag-teams","tag-this","tag-tongan","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}