International Pacific Championship

Zaggo said:
I disagree. There were actually quite a few Kiwis fans there, far more than I was expecting and far, far more than there were at the equivalent fixture a couple of years ago.

It was still clearly Tongan majority but the Kiwis support is trending in the right direction.
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I've never noticed your profile pic before- that's classic.
Yeah when they had the overhead shot before the game it looked like the whole place was tongan fans but looking into the crowd during the game there was actually a lot of support for the kiwis there. Think it was a bit of an optical illusion with red being such a bright colour- the flags and noise they make obviously helps too so don't know if it was that lopsided, but they still put us to shame that's for sure- gotta take your hat off to them.
 

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Boats n Hoes said:
BS the Tongan games were packing out well before the Wah's movement even came into existence in 2023.

Can pretty much trace it back to when Jason Taumololo and Andrew Fifita both decided to put heritage first. Since then every Tongan Rugby League game is seen as an oppertunity for them to celebrate themselves as a people, hence why they get out en masse.

Culminated in that famous sea of red 2022 sold out Mount Smart where Tonga beat the Kiwi's and in a lot of pundits minds one of the best sporting crowds across any code in NZ history.....this was before the term "Wah's" was even known.
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I think you're misconstruing my statment, Im not aruging that they have not been massive every single time. Just that they are still increasing in size and target to a younger audience. This most recent one is the 3rd biggest ever we've had for international kiwis game of > 38,000. Which is 14k more than tonga has ever had in NZ. So again, just saying that it looks to of increased those already large numbers. But that the warriors fan base (especially in auckland) has a massive cross over with pacifica cultures, so of course any massive social media movment is going to feed back into those communities andn ot just into the kiwi ones.
 
1995warriorsfan said:
He should have never played in the first place. The Tongan medical team etc have a lot to answer for. The Storm must be pissed.
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From the outside it looks like they exploited a loophole (warm up and not in game incident ergo lets not worry about the protocols).

As I said before, it is possible no Doctor knew about the first injury. Which means the NRL have to change their surveillance to include all forms of training.
Clearly you cannot rely on medical water boys. You need to make a Doctor responsible throughout.

It is so frustrating.

Have we not all watched critical incident analysis like seconds from disaster or air crash investigation? do we all not know in this day and age that there is a chain of decisions that cause the eventual harm?

Decision one, remove the worst head injury from the analysis of the next two.

Everything after that means false data and a looming accident.

Decision two, let the player go back out after a compounding head injury. Again meaning another accident is possible.

Decision three, let the player go out again and end up with a head injury so severe that they are fighting for their lives.

You could forgive making one mistake, making a chain of three is unforgivable.
 
Wahs_Ultras said:
“Eli Katoa suffered a bleed on the brain as a result of 3 significant knocks to his head after yesterdays pacific champs game”
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Right so that makes the surgery make sense.


First things first though, hopefully he pulls through to a full recovery.

Known quite a few work mates that went through this, none of them worked again. He is young so he might get through to a full recovery like TMM did.
 
sup42 said:
Right so that makes the surgery make sense.


First things first though, hopefully he pulls through to a full recovery.

Known quite a few work mates that went through this, none of them worked again. He is young so he might get through to a full recovery like TMM did.
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So in the greater scheme of things as long as his overall health is ok that’s the main thing but do you think this could potentially put his career at risk?
 
WA Warrior said:
So in the greater scheme of things as long as his overall health is ok that’s the main thing but do you think this could potentially put his career at risk?
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Recovery time for a professional athlete after a brain bleed (intracranial hematoma) is highly variable, but generally takes
much longer than a typical concussion, often spanning six months to over a year, with some potentially facing medical retirement from high-contact sports.

Chat gpt response so take it with a grain of salt, but looks to be a long recovery process ahead of him
 
Wahs_Ultras said:
“Eli Katoa suffered a bleed on the brain as a result of 3 significant knocks to his head after yesterdays pacific champs game”
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Could very easily have died here. Very poor from the Tongan staff not to show a duty of care towards Katoa. Gives an impression that there’s been a loophole used where the hia didn’t occur in the game so perhaps didn’t get the of ruling around it? That will be denied of course now with how serious this has become, and perhaps wasn’t the case? But the footage shows that the knock in warm up should have ruled him out. Quite disgraceful actually in light of what’s happened and even if he wanted to play on, it’s no excuse for the staff to let that happen
 
Wahs_Ultras said:
Recovery time for a professional athlete after a brain bleed (intracranial hematoma) is highly variable, but generally takes
much longer than a typical concussion, often spanning six months to over a year, with some potentially facing medical retirement from high-contact sports.

Chat gpt response so take it with a grain of salt, but looks to be a long recovery process ahead of him.
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There is nothing wrong with that chat GP exert.

What it doesn't speak to is what happens with a brain bleed that requires surgery.

You can have bleeds that show on scans that do not require surgery.

Obviously we seem to be looking at the more serious kind of bleed.

You only need look at Te Maire Martin.

Serious bleed, told he will never play again.

Gets a better prognosis after a long time out of the game, a specialist says there is no reason he cannot try playing again.

But to answer the original posters question about career then yeah obviously it can be the end of a career.

You can end up brain damaged right. Like impairment in normal every day life that is permanent.
 
One bad hit can be life-changing. Look at Adam Ritson. Yes, he likely had other knocks during his career, but the end came from one shot.

His (Ritson) story doesn't get brought up much now. It is pretty sombre reading when you see how he'd go to the bathroom and have instructions for him on the return trip.

The original article was either in RLW or on the Sydney Morning Herald years ago. This one mentions his memory issues. Not sure if the recovery mentioned is legit or not. Could be someone trying to push a miracle drug.

The Eels Star, the Family Tragedy and the Innovation - Openforum

In 1996 my 19yr old nephew, Adam Ritson, was knocked unconscious after a head-high tackle on the footy field. In the X-rays and CAT Scans which followed doctors discovered an unrelated, benign cyst on the base of his brain. Surgery to remove the cyst led to an acute brain injury and severe...
www.openforum.com.au
His memory was so affected that after walking down the hall to the bathroom it was a struggle to find his way back to his room, he couldn’t always recognise us, and he was experiencing serious speech difficulties.

The concussion protocols are aimed at reducing the frequency between head knocks. Even the Category 1, 11 days is probably too short. The most a player should get under the current system is two, with at least the 15-minute assessment between each.

Having 3 in one day is unacceptable. Especially when you could argue the first one was enough to warrant resting him.
 
snake77 said:
One bad hit can be life-changing. Look at Adam Ritson. Yes, he likely had other knocks during his career, but the end came from one shot.

His (Ritson) story doesn't get brought up much now. It is pretty sombre reading when you see how he'd go to the bathroom and have instructions for him on the return trip.

The original article was either in RLW or on the Sydney Morning Herald years ago. This one mentions his memory issues. Not sure if the recovery mentioned is legit or not. Could be someone trying to push a miracle drug.

The Eels Star, the Family Tragedy and the Innovation - Openforum

In 1996 my 19yr old nephew, Adam Ritson, was knocked unconscious after a head-high tackle on the footy field. In the X-rays and CAT Scans which followed doctors discovered an unrelated, benign cyst on the base of his brain. Surgery to remove the cyst led to an acute brain injury and severe...
www.openforum.com.au
His memory was so affected that after walking down the hall to the bathroom it was a struggle to find his way back to his room, he couldn’t always recognise us, and he was experiencing serious speech difficulties.

The concussion protocols are aimed at reducing the frequency between head knocks. Even the Category 1, 11 days is probably too short. The most a player should get under the current system is two, with at least the 15-minute assessment between each.

Having 3 in one day is unacceptable. Especially when you could argue the first one was enough to warrant resting him.
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Yeah unfortunately this is a serious situation with lots that can go wrong, problems in any given area of life, speech, mobility, memory, concentration, mood, performing basic tasks, hand eye coordination so on and so forth.

First hurdle and immediate priority is the patients survival right, then rehab, then long term recovery.

Then football last.
 
sup42 said:
Right so that makes the surgery make sense.


First things first though, hopefully he pulls through to a full recovery.

Known quite a few work mates that went through this, none of them worked again. He is young so he might get through to a full recovery like TMM did.
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Obviously Eli needs to focus on getting well before he thinks of anything else, but there’s whispers he might be out for an extended period and even a possibility that could have been his last game…
Don’t wish that on anyone but hopefully this is a wake up call to the sport,.
I’ve seen far too many players across the years play on with serious head injuries because they were roughing it out, when you are in that situation you don’t have the ability to make decisions about playing on and you should never even be in the situation to.
 
roguei said:
I think you're misconstruing my statment, Im not aruging that they have not been massive every single time. Just that they are still increasing in size and target to a younger audience. This most recent one is the 3rd biggest ever we've had for international kiwis game of > 38,000. Which is 14k more than tonga has ever had in NZ. So again, just saying that it looks to of increased those already large numbers. But that the warriors fan base (especially in auckland) has a massive cross over with pacifica cultures, so of course any massive social media movment is going to feed back into those communities andn ot just into the kiwi ones.
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Well your statement was that the wah's movement has translated into the increased rise in Tongan (and Pacifica) international league when clearly the "rise" of Tongan rugby league was well n truly underway before the "wah's movement" was even. a thing. Apologies if thats not what u were implying but that's how it read.

And even then this was the first game the Tongans have played at Eden Park. U dont think it was more the increased capacity of the ground that meant they could pack it out more?

Tonga games pre "up the wahs" at Go Media
2018 - 26214
2019 - 23624
2022 - 20766
post "up the wahs"
2024 - 22363....hardly overwhelming evidence the "movement" has mobilized a people

In the case of the Pacific nations i really do think its more the celebration of their culture (particulary as more elite players choose to represent their heritage} that leads to the increased popularity. The real litmus will be when the Kiwi's play a non pacific nation.....and heyzuss if Hamilton 2024 post "wahs movement" 13500 v Australia is anything to go by....then yeah...still waiting for it to translate,
 
Boats n Hoes said:
Well your statement was that the wah's movement has translated into the increased rise in Tongan (and Pacifica) international league when clearly the "rise" of Tongan rugby league was well n truly underway before the "wah's movement" was even. a thing. Apologies if thats not what u were implying but that's how it read.

And even then this was the first game the Tongans have played at Eden Park. U dont think it was more the increased capacity of the ground that meant they could pack it out more?

Tonga games pre "up the wahs" at Go Media
2018 - 26214
2019 - 23624
2022 - 20766
post "up the wahs"
2024 - 22363....hardly overwhelming evidence the "movement" has mobilized a people

In the case of the Pacific nations i really do think its more the celebration of their culture (particulary as more elite players choose to represent their heritage} that leads to the increased popularity. The real litmus will be when the Kiwi's play a non pacific nation.....and heyzuss if Hamilton 2024 post "wahs movement" 13500 v Australia is anything to go by....then yeah...still waiting for it to translate,
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Fair enough mate, agree to disagree. Your numbers pre "up the wahs" at go media are trending down, and then post it starts to trend back up. My only thought was around a youth in auckland are more interested in league after the warriors go far into the finals and the media starts to pick up on it more. I totally agree that it's a celebration of culture and most people attending are not in the slightest thinking "up the wahs". More that those cultural milestones leads to people watching the game with more interest in the first place, then getting on board and understanding the game just long enough to be really invested in a Vaimauga or Halasima. That those moments cause people to really connect/re-connect with the game they otherwise woulden't. But i'm also not a part of the togan community, so i could be talking out my ass. Just an observation from talking to people at the games.
 
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