{"id":462297,"date":"2026-06-05T11:30:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462297\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T11:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:30:24","slug":"breaking-storm-hit-with-major-injury-blow-as-representative-star-ruled-out-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462297\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Storm hit with major injury blow as representative star ruled out of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Melbourne Storm may have defeated the Newcastle Knights on Friday night to claim their sixth win of the season, but the club have been hit with a major injury blow.<\/p>\n

Watch every game of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The club confirmed that winger Xavier Coates will not return at all in 2026 and will miss the remainder of the series.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players knew before the game, and I think there was a little bit of effort tonight was for X,\u201d Craig Bellamy said after the match against the Knights.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really sure what to say either. He\u2019s a great player, but a great fella too, and a great guy to have around the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

The injury will also make him unavailable for Game 3 of the 2026 State of Origin series for Queensland and Australia at the 2026 Rugby League World Cup.<\/p>\n

Yet to play a match during this year\u2019s campaign, the Storm revealed that he ruptured his Achilles at training on Friday as he attempted to make his comeback to first-grade.<\/p>\n

Coates suffers season-ending setback | 00:29<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he was only a couple of weeks from returning, but Xav is the ultimate team man.,\u201d Storm captain Harry Grant said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always puts everyone before himself, and you know what you\u2019re going to get from him week in, week out. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe club\u2019s got his back now and Xaveir knows that a lot of people have been through that injury and come out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coates will undergo surgery next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was running and it just popped,\u201d Coates told AAP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was only running at about 50 per cent and it just went.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Melbourne Storm may have defeated the Newcastle Knights on Friday night to claim their sixth win of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-462297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462297","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=462297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}