'What if this is the rest of my life': Katoa beats injury fears to lead finals charge

Just weeks after fearing he would never fully regain his vision, Eliesa Katoa is set to play a key role in the Storm’s finals charge and could force his way into the Tongan squad for their end-of-season tour to England.

Katoa, who was born in Tonga and attended high school in New Zealand on a rugby union scholarship, joined the Storm this season in a bid to rekindle his NRL career but feared for his future after an eye injury in the Round 15 match against Cronulla.

“It was scary because when it happened, I completely lost my vision,” Katoa told NRL.com.

“It was only for a couple of days, but I was sitting in the hospital and imagining ‘what if this is me for the rest of my life’. I am so grateful. I had surgery and two or three days after that it started to come back.”

Initially it was believed Katoa had merely suffered a scratch on his eyeball after receiving an accidental poke in the right eye while attempting a tackle.

However, his vision got worse and the 23-year-old was told he required surgery to repair a tear above his retina.

While his sight returned after the operation, the recovery was mentally torturous as Katoa spent a week lying face down on a massage table.

“That was tough. I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t’ leave my room,” Katoa said. “I had to sleep like that. It was 24-7.

“I was just on my phone. I had to lay face down, so I put my arm under the table and was watching like that.”

Katoa returned in the Round 22 win against Parramatta and after starting two matches from the interchange he played the full 80 minutes in the second-row against the Dragons last weekend and was arguably the Storm’s best player.

After bursting on the scene in 2020 as a raw but talented forward at the Warriors, Katoa’s progress has been closely watched by Tonga coach Kristian Woolf and he is now under consideration for the upcoming three-Test series against England.

“He is at one of the top clubs in Melbourne, and he is a very good player for them, so when you are doing that at NRL level every week you are obviously going to come into strong consideration,” Woolf said.

“He came into our camp last year for the mid-season Test in New Zealand and that was a bit of a development camp for him, so to speak, where he got the opportunity to see what it was all about, and we got to see what he was about.

He is an outstanding young man and Tonga is very close to his heart - you can tell that from every conversation you have with him about it.

“If he gets that opportunity, and he will at some stage with the way he is progressing, it is going to mean a lot to him.”

Hailing from the Tongan village of Koulo in the Ha'apai group of islands, Katoa had only played 13 games of league when he made his NRL debut in the opening match of the 2020 season.

The match in Newcastle coincided with the closure of international borders due to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, which may have also impacted on his development due to the cancellation of lower grade competitions. 

Despite signing a four-year deal with the Warriors in 2020, Katoa asked for a release at the end of last season and he joined the Storm for a fresh start.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy said after last weekend’s 38-28 win in Wollongong that the club hadn’t been exactly sure what they expected from Katoa this season – but he knew what to expect of them.

“The Storm have been so successful for such a long time and I knew that if I came here and worked hard that I could do well,” Katoa said.

“That’s what I like about this club. When I first came here Craig told me that I would have to work hard, that there was a spot for me but I would have to work for it, and that is what I did in the pre-season.

“If you are new to the club, you always have to do two weeks of work experience.

I was concreting. It was tough, and it was a different experience for me, but it was good because you realise that you can’t take anything for granted.

“There are people out there working like 9-to-5 and we are very lucky to be where we are through footy.

“I feel like that helped me with my resilience because there’s going to be some point in the game that I’m out on my feet, but I know that I can push through.”

Katoa initially signed a two year deal with the Storm but he recently extended his stay in Melbourne until at least the end of the 2026 season.