Cronulla star Sione Katoa is flying high in 2025, but the hulking winger has revealed he struggled for money so badly early in his NRL career that he had to collect cans and bottles for recycling just to make ends meet.
Katoa, born in Hamilton, NZ, has played on the wing for the Sharks at NRL level since 2018, making 120 appearances and scoring 79 tries.
Internationally, he represented Tonga between 2022–24 and in the 2019 Rugby League World Cup 9s, earning four Test caps and three appearances in the 9s tournament.
His journey to the NRL began when he was just six years old and his family moved to Australia, setting roots in Sydney’s west in Granville.
Katoa was always the naturally gifted one amongst his friends in Sydney, dominating basketball contests that would stretch until 1am at the local youth centre because they had ‘nothing better to do’.
‘The youth centre days were some of the best, most fun days I’ve had in my life,’ he said.
Sione Katoa developed his sporting skills playing basketball with friends in Sydney’s west before earning an NRL contract with the Cronulla Sharks
Life changed quickly for Katoa when his now-wife Taufa (pictured together) fell pregnant when they were both very young
Katoa spoke with old friends on the Bros and Cons podcast (pictured) about his rapid rise to fame, and the challenges that came with it
‘If I did go to school, that’s where I would be after. If I didn’t go to school, that’s where I would be. If I didn’t go to school, it was because I would stay until 12 or 1 in the morning playing basketball.
‘I can honestly say that place helped me a lot, looking back now.’
It helped them stay on the rails in a tough environment, with many of their peers living on the street, getting involved with drugs and facing a bleak future.
Eventually, Katoa’s athletic talents were noticed by the Cronulla Sharks, and he was offered a minimum wage contract to start in 2018 when he was just 20 years old.
‘Coming through I didn’t think “I want to play NRL“, it just slowly happened,’ he said.
‘I enjoyed it, I had fun and that’s how I got there.’
However, his rags-to-riches story didn’t quite play out that way in the beginning.
While Katoa grew up poor and humble, he now had a young family to feed and the first contract he signed with the Sharks didn’t go far in the gentrified Shire.
While Katoa is an NRL star and plays international football for Tonga, his early days meant money was tight
At the beginning of his career, Katoa (pictured after winning the NSW Cup with feeder side Newtown) had to collect recyclable cans and bottles to make ends meet
Once a surfer’s hangout, Cronulla became a coastal paradise with luxury homes lining the foreshore, and Katoa spoke about what he needed to do just to make ends meet after leaving Sydney’s inner west for the Shire.
‘I got married young,’ he told the Bros and Cons podcast, hosted by friends he has known since childhood.
‘Because I got my wife pregnant. In the Tongan culture, we got married.
‘So we had a little wedding and then we had a newborn and then I had to move into the Shire.’
That was the moment Katoa realised the road to the NRL was not paved with gold.
‘It was my first time moving out of home,’ he said.
‘At that time, my contract was not that much. The minimum was about $60k [a year] or something.
‘When you move to the Shire, you’ve got to pay rent, bills and all these [expenses].’
Katoa and his wife (pictured together with their daughters) welcomed their first child at a young age and found it difficult to make ends meet
Katoa quickly realised that the $60,000 contract was not going to stretch far enough once all those bills were factored in.
‘There was a time I had to collect the 10-cent bottles [for recycling].’
It would have been a strange sight for locals, to see a towering Tongan NRL star walking the streets and collecting rubbish for money.
So he collected the bottles and cans under the cover of darkness.
‘I would wait until Tuesday nights, that was bin night,’ Katoa said.
‘I would wait until it gets dark. So that is what I was doing that time when it got hard.
‘In Cronulla, there is a lot of drinking. There is a lot of partying.
‘So I would wait until 11pm, 12am at night to go out because I was scared people might see me. I was shy to show my face [while] I am doing this.
‘But at home, I just needed money.’
Things got so bad that Katoa and his young wife Taufa ran out of money for essentials like nappies and formula for their child Keziah.
‘I knew every street, where the jackpot was, cases of [empty] beer [bottles],’ he said, able to laugh about it now.
‘I was probably the only one doing it at that time.
‘Some nights I would have my daughter in the car with me sleeping.
‘I would fill these bags up, stack them up on top of my car.
‘My wife would tell me that is enough, come home.’
Highlighting how much extra work Katoa was doing to bring in extra income, the Sharks winger said he would bring home at least $200 from his Tuesday-night scavenges – collecting an average of 2000 bottles.
‘That’s a story that, I never want to tell it. Because I feel embarrassed.
‘But looking back now, it’s a story that maybe somebody can take something out of.’
