{"id":479273,"date":"2025-11-10T18:59:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T19:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=479273"},"modified":"2025-11-10T23:20:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T23:20:28","slug":"tonga-coach-by-katoas-side-as-star-remains-in-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=479273","title":{"rendered":"Tonga coach by Katoa&#039;s side as star remains in hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/news-2025-eli-katoa-concussion-tonga-update-uncle-20251106-p5n84k.html\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"Eli Katoa\">Eli Katoa<\/a> is likely to leave hospital this week but the Storm forward must stay in Auckland until he&#x27;s cleared to fly, following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/news-2025-eli-katoa-hosptialised-tonga-head-knocks-junior-paulo-jarome-luai-player-safety-plea-20251103-p5n7gd.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"a series of head knocks suffered in the Pacific Championships\">a series of head knocks suffered in the Pacific Championships<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Tongan star had\ufeff fluid drained from his brain following a match against New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/one-week-on-eli-katoa-remains-in-hospital-tonga-s-coach-has-been-at-his-bedside-every-day-20251110-p5n96l.html\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"The Sydney Morning Herald\">The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> reports\ufeff Tonga coach Kristian Woolf has remained in Auckland and visited his player in hospital daily alongside the player&#x27;s family. It&#x27;s understood the coach won&#x27;t return to Australia until he is confident Katoa will make a full recovery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/news-2025-rule-changes-kick-off-drop-out-phil-gould-josh-morris-comments-20251110-p5n99m.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Kick off change rubbished while &#x27;worst rule ever&#x27; ripped<\/strong><\/a><strong>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/afl\/news-2025-west-coast-eagles-draft-picks-harley-reid-injury-scare-20251110-p5n99n.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Eagles bullish on picks stance while Reid hit by injury scare<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE: \ufeff<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/news-2025-nathan-cleary-criticism-kangaroos-performance-20251110-p5n98s.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Cleary critics told to back off &#x27;too nice&#x27; halfback<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The report states Katoa&#x27;s condition has improved and he had his best day yet on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>He will remain in hospital until possibly Thursday but then will need to remain\ufeff in New Zealand until given clearance to fly home to Victoria.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"318c5cf9-efc0-4fff-9eb7-9734fc742715\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/318c5cf9-efc0-4fff-9eb7-9734fc742715\" alt=\"\" data-width=\"3708\" data-height=\"2472\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The NRL has investigated the circumstances that led to Katoa being allowed to take the field after TV cameras caught the moment he was hurt during warm-up.<\/p>\n<p>Tonga officials said they were not made aware of the footage until after full-time, and said they would have ruled him out if they had known. They asked the NRL why no one had alerted the doctors to the TV vision.<\/p>\n<p>It&#x27;s understood the NRL&#x27;s integrity unit has completed its probe into the matter, but the findings will not be made public until they are confident Katoa will make a full recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Katoa was never well enough to be interviewed by the NRL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Eli Katoa is likely to leave hospital this week but the Storm forward must stay in Auckland until he&#x27;s cleared to fly, following a series <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=479273\" title=\"Tonga coach by Katoa&#039;s side as star remains in hospital\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":479275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=479273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479276,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479273\/revisions\/479276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/479275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=479273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=479273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=479273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}