How two premierships in one year was the making of Isaiya Katoa

Source : ABC NEWS

In the four years since the remarkable season that forged Isaiya Katoa’s first legend the Dolphins playmaker has proven time and again why he is the sort of player whose ascension was not expected but awaited.

On Saturday, Katoa will play in his first ever NRL semifinal when the Phins travel to Auckland to face the Warriors in the pick of the week one match-ups.

Katoa heads to New Zealand as the game’s prince of playmakers amid a transformation from star of the future to star of the present.

It will be his first finals match of any kind since 2022, the season before his NRL debut and the year the limitless possibilities of his future revealed themselves.

It began in the February, when Katoa signed with the Dolphins on his 18th birthday he already carried a mighty reputation among the league types who know about these things.

The hype around Katoa was enormous right from the jump, which doesn’t feel like much of a burden now he’s lived up to it but has crushed many a promising halfback before they could even get going.

With the Dolphins missing out on a host of big names for their inaugural season, they made a big bet that Katoa could become the star they need.

Given the lack of junior football over the past two seasons due to the pandemic that was no sure thing but Katoa showed his quality in that year’s SG Ball competition, as he steered Penrith to the Under 19s grand final.

The Panthers were hardly a one-man band with future Parramatta hooker Ryley Smith and Warriors five-eighth Luke Hanson joining Katoa in the side, as did current Panthers dummy half Billy Scott.

The Windsor Wolves rake knew Katoa well by that point, having played against him growing up and with him at Patrician Brothers Blacktown.

“You could tell from a young age that he’d play NRL,” said Scott.

“He was so mature, so calm and ahead of the game.”

All of Katoa’s poise didn’t help in the early running as a Sydney Roosters containing Ethan Strange, Robert Toia, Solesi Foekti and Siua Wong ran out 20-0 leaders inside the first 25 minutes.

But Katoa laid on one try and helped create two more to claim man of the match honours as Penrith fought their way back to win 22-20 courtesy of a sideline conversion in the final seconds.

In the weeks that followed, the simmering tension between the Panthers and Dolphins over the latter landing Katoa came to a head.

He was excluded from the club’s Jersey Flegg side for much of the season in a decision Penrith stressed was not personal, a claim which would eventually ring true.

After playing rugby, where he led Barker College to a Combined Associated Schools premiership win and occasional games back home for Glenmore Park Brumbies, Katoa was recalled by the Panthers, not for the Under 21s but straight into a reserve grade semifinal.

With Penrith’s NRL side resting their entire starting side for the final round of the season, the reggies got the call up to the firsts and the kids had to step up to the seconds for the major preliminary final against North Sydney.

Alongside Isaiah Iongi and the Puru twins, in one of his first games against battle-hardened men, Katoa scored a try and set up two more amid a 22-14 win.

Then came another semifinal, a grand final qualifier in Jersey Flegg where the Roosters waited yet again.

In his first game with the side for the season, Katoa set up a try and kicked a field goal in a 27-22 victory.

Newcastle awaited in the grand final, as did an epic. The Knights were more than handy — Fletcher Sharpe lined up at fullback and Kurt Donoghoe a future partner-in-crime of Katoa’s at the Phins, was at five-eighth.

Even though Katoa had been away from junior representative footy all season every Newcastle player knew what was in store.

“He was always one of the guns. You’d do a whole week of video pretty much just on him — which is still the same now,” said Sharpe.

“He can be tricky to get a read on because he’s got so many parts to his game.”

Thomas Cant captained the Newcastle side at second row and despite having appeared in 38 NRL matches since he still calls this decider one of the hardest games he’s ever played.

In the end it went to double extra time after the sides were locked at 18-all. Golden point beckoned and the two teams would play until there was a winner.

If you think that winner came from anyone but Katoa you haven’t been paying attention.

“Honestly, my main memory is how good winning felt. We just stayed present and stayed in it. You get what you deserve, and if you put in the work it’ll work out,” said Scott, who again played alongside Katoa.

“He missed a few field goals in that game but even that’s a credit to him — he stayed calm and when he needed to he nailed it.”

All told, Katoa played six finals matches for Penrith that season across three different grades and won them all.

Just for good measure, he capped the season with a World Cup campaign with Tonga and his Test debut. He completed his HSC via correspondence during the tour and on return began life as a Dolphin.

Progress over the next three years was steady and over the last 18 months Katoa has fully blossomed.

Unlike other young halves, who rely on their running game, all of Katoa’s brilliance comes from between his ears and in his hands.

He is not a jack rabbit, but a craftsman with an artisanal touch and it was all there in those days with Penrith, clear as day through the grainy footage.

He holds the ball out in front, showing it this way and that. He delays his pass until the exact right moment when one defender has passed the point of no return and space must exist somewhere on his outside.

His poise, execution and inexplicable ability to make defenders sit on their heels and play with a desperate uncertainty because they don’t know what’s next is unmissable once you know what you’re looking at.

Those talents have held up at every level since, becoming more finely honed until now when they will be battle-tested by a Warriors team who take no prisoners in front of more than 25,000 Kiwi screamers.

It will be a pressure unlike any Katoa has ever known and win or lose, there will be other days like this to come.

That has felt like his fate since Katoa’s year of winning dangerously, which had an air of promise at the time but can now be retro-fitted into prologue, a mere taste of what was to come.

Before, Katoa was the son of a golden tomorrow and those days have now arrived and all those wins four years ago remain proof that while many are called, few are chosen.