Eli Katoa’s career-threatening injury to force major NRL rule changes
Like it or not, rugby league is about to change forever. The NRL, on the back of Eli Katoa’s life-threatening injury, has no choice but to act as it did after Alex McKinnon’s devastating diagnosis of quadriplegia.
Having been given the honour to pen the autobiography of Alex McKinnon in 2015, these are words that don’t flow easily.
The serious head injury suffered by Melbourne Storm and Tongan forward Eliesa Katoa, will miss the entire 2026 NRL season, is the game’s most significant injury at the game’s highest level since Alex was lifted in a tackle 11-years ago, causing crushing pressure on his spinal cord and resulting in his devastating diagnosis of quadriplegia.
That’s not an attempt for click-bait or to overdramatise the horrible situation that Katoa, his family and the Storm are facing after he underwent emergency surgery to ease pressure on his brain following three separate head knocks while playing for Tonga against the Kiwis 14-days ago.
It’s to shine a light on the gravitas of the fact that a 25-year-old at the absolute peak of his NRL career as the 2025 Dally M backrower of the year, may never play the game he loves again.
If he does, and you better believe we all hope he does, it will be one of the most courageous comebacks the game has seen.
Katoa is recovering in Melbourne after a two-week stay in an Auckland hospital.
By no means, is he out of the woods.
As Storm CEO Justin Rodski said last Friday; “what his recovery looks like from there, whether that’s heading home, whether that’s heading into some sort of rehabilitation centre, it’s probably too early to tell on that.”
Rodski was also unable to say whether Katoa would play rugby league again. It’s Rodski’s honesty in voicing the uncertainty surrounding Katoa’s future that magnifies this entire situation.
Every sport comes with risk. Every athlete accepts that they may suffer injury, minor or severe, during their career.
But whether you like it or not, every sport reacts after an injury as severe as Katoa’s. And this is what we’re about to see from the NRL.
Like it or not, the game will change from this moment in time.
World Cricket changed after the heartbreaking death of Phillip Hughes, with significantly improved helmet safety, the introduction of concussion substitutes, and a shift in the psychology of fast bowlers, making them more cautious about intimidating batters.
The NRL changed too after Alex’s life-changing injury with the hypersensitive spotlight on lifting players past the horizontal and gang tackles.
Out of respect to Katoa, the NRL aren’t willing to publish their findings from the inquest they have conducted into how the backrower was permitted to continue playing after a sickening warm-up hit to the head and then again after a second head knock in the ninth minute of the match, until he is back in Australia.
I firmly believe the NRL will sanction key individuals that could’ve prevented Katoa from playing through his first and second head knock.
What is the greatest cop-out of all is that the Tongan staff weren’t aware of the TV footage that showed Katoa slumping in pain from his head knock in the warm-up.
The inquest should tear shreds off this take, given that a Tongan training staff member was left cradling Katoa on the field. The breakdown in communication from here is mind-blowing and unacceptable.
I’ll be stunned if in the wake of Katoa’s injury, the NRL doesn’t enforce a greater level of training standards or at least a strict education process for all coaching staff ahead of any NRL-sanctioned International fixture in the future.
The NRL have been bashed before about being reactionary.
They have no other choice but to react after this with the risk being the possible end of a talented footballer’s career.
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