{"id":162208,"date":"2025-12-01T05:47:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T05:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/162208\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T05:47:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T05:47:04","slug":"tongan-rugby-league-star-eli-katoa-aims-for-return-as-he-recovers-from-brain-surgery-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/162208\/","title":{"rendered":"Tongan rugby league star Eli Katoa aims for return as he recovers from brain surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cMy recovery is going well and hopefully I can keep ticking all of the boxes that I need!<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cAnd to the Storm fans, in God\u2019s timing, \u2018I\u2019ll be back soon\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Eli Katoa has posted this photo of partner Tuitofa Aloua helping him down hospital stairs. Photo \/ Instagram\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Eli Katoa has posted this photo of partner Tuitofa Aloua helping him down hospital stairs. Photo \/ Instagram<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">Katoa posted a photo of partner Tuitofa Aloua helping him walk down hospital stairs and said: \u201cTo my girl, this woman has been amazing, strong and sticking by my side through it all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI appreciate you and I love you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">He also thanked fans for their messages and prayers, and the Storm club and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/topic\/tonga-rugby-team\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/topic\/tonga-rugby-team\/\">Tongan rugby league<\/a> community for their support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">Katoa had not had a head injury assessment for the knock he took before the match. He passed an HIA for the first injury in the test and continued playing, but left the field after the second.<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">After the match, former Kiwis and Warriors star Shaun Johnson was critical that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/sport\/rugby-league\/nrl\/eli-katoa-ruled-out-of-2026-nrl-season-after-repeated-head-knocks-in-kiwis-clash\/4GGNHP7E5NGDJCUV63LWE6DFBA\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/sport\/rugby-league\/nrl\/eli-katoa-ruled-out-of-2026-nrl-season-after-repeated-head-knocks-in-kiwis-clash\/4GGNHP7E5NGDJCUV63LWE6DFBA\/\">Katoa was even allowed to play.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI don\u2019t get how it can even get to that point,\u201d he said on his Play on Sport Show podcast. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be fallout over this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThere\u2019s going to be some heads that will roll, because I do not know how Eli Katoa was actually even allowed to take the field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">Tonga coach Kristian Woolf defended team doctors, saying everything was \u201cdone by the book\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got two very experienced doctors there,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve done their usual HIA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cHe\u2019s passed all that and passed all that well. My job is not to question doctors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"CHLSLkBXpVqCICiH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThey were both comfortable with that and comfortable with him coming back on to the field, so I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything to worry about there in terms of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMy recovery is going well and hopefully I can keep ticking all of the boxes that I need!&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4886,806,1596,18410,2082,71,692,82836,14731,111,139,69,68925,1527,6327,213,2737,6290,31782],"class_list":["post-162208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aims","tag-as","tag-brain","tag-eli","tag-for","tag-from","tag-he","tag-katoa","tag-league","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-recovers","tag-return","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-star","tag-surgery","tag-tongan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162208","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=162208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}