{"id":344081,"date":"2026-03-23T18:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/344081\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T18:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:45:10","slug":"melbourne-storm-say-eli-katoa-may-never-play-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/344081\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne Storm say Eli Katoa may never play again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

\nEli Katoa received the injury during the Tonga and New Zealand Kiwis Pacific Championships match in Auckland.
\nPhoto: NRL Photos\/Photosport\n<\/p>\n

Tongan rugby league player Eliesa Katoa may never play the game again, according to Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy.<\/p>\n

Katoa had brain surgery in November as a result of head knocks he received during the Tonga and New Zealand Kiwis Pacific Championships match in Auckland.<\/p>\n

The first was a head knock with a team mate during the pre-game warm up, followed by two more high hits during the match.<\/p>\n

The 25 year old backrower was ruled out of the 2026 season but now Melbourne Storm coach Bellamy has revealed that Katoa may never return to the NRL.<\/a><\/p>\n

“He’s doing really well at the moment,” Bellamy told Channel 7.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know if he’ll play next year\u2026 I don’t know if he’ll play again.<\/p>\n

“The doctors haven’t made that decision, and I don’t know when that decision will get made to be quite honest.<\/p>\n

\"Melbourne<\/p>\n

\nMelbourne Storm star Eli Katoa in the hospital following his injury after a test against New Zealand earlier this month.
\nPhoto: Instagram\/Supplied\n<\/p>\n

“I imagine after a certain amount of time he’ll 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.”<\/p>\n

As a part of his recovery Katoa has been working with the Melbourne Storm forward pack.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eli Katoa received the injury during the Tonga and New Zealand Kiwis Pacific Championships match in Auckland. Photo:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-344081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344081","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=344081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}