Pasilio Tosi: the 140kg No 8 from Levin who became an All Blacks tighthead

Among the replacements for the All Blacks at Murrayfield on Sunday morning is a 140-kilogram tighthead who was still playing No 8 in his early twenties. Pasilio Tosi, named at 18 for the Scotland Test, has 19 Tests behind him, a Super Rugby title from June and a story ClubRugby.nz called one of the most colourful in recent New Zealand rugby: a Levin boy who played junior rugby on the wing, was part of a national title-winning First XV at Rotorua Boys' High, was talked into the front row in Invercargill and was signed by the Hurricanes after one big night for Bay of Plenty.

Levin beginnings

Viliami Pasilio Tosi was born in Levin, in Horowhenua, on 18 July 1998, and grew up there. His parents worked as vegetable growers, according to a 2026 ClubRugby.nz profile. He is the oldest of four children, and the Horowhenua Chronicle reported that he grew up watching his father play senior club cricket in Horowhenua-Kapiti season after season. He tried cricket too, but his father told the paper that rugby was always his son's game.

He played his junior rugby for the Athletic club in Levin, and his coaches there remember a boy who was too quick to be anywhere but the backs. Mario Fifita told the Chronicle that Tosi was the fastest in the team, so he played on the wing, and that he had remarkable strength for his age. "He was only young and he could squat with me on his shoulders," Fifita said. The team struggled to find boots big enough for him. Another junior coach, Phil Matenga, remembered a "gentle giant" who would run around opponents rather than over them.

At Horowhenua College he was the junior athletics champion, winning the 100 metres, the javelin, the shot put and the discus. At 14 he was playing for the Horowhenua-Kapiti under-16 team, and coach Chris Wilton reached for the obvious comparison: "He was huge, like Jonah Lomu ... big as, fast as."

He drew attention at the Hurricanes schoolboy tournament that year. Tosi told ClubRugby.nz that he had caught the rugby bug at eight, and that after two years at Horowhenua College a Bay of Plenty Rugby Academy staff member, James Potter, encouraged him to go to Rotorua Boys' High School if he wanted to make it.

Rotorua Boys' High

Tosi spent three years in the Rotorua Boys' High First XV, according to his NZ Rugby Museum profile on stats.allblacks.com. In 2015 the school won the national Top Four title, beating Scots College 36-27 in the final, its fourth national crown.

Tosi was the team's No 8 that year but did not play the final. He explained to ClubRugby.nz that a rule limited the number of new-to-school players who could take part, so he watched from high in the grandstand. When the winning try was scored, he said, he charged down onto the field and was the first to reach the try-scorer.

Chris Grinter, the school's former headmaster and long-time First XV coach, described him as "a great team man, proudly Pasifika and popular among his peers", and added that it took the big No 8 a while to accept that his future was at prop. The Southland Tribune reported that Tosi was also a New Zealand Secondary Schools rugby league representative.

He became the latest in a line of Rotorua Boys' High All Blacks that includes Liam Messam.

Southland and the switch

In 2017 Tosi moved from Rotorua to Invercargill to join the Rugby Southland academy. The Southland Tribune described him then as a No 8 of close to 140 kilograms. He played his club rugby for Marist, led them to Galbraith Shield titles in 2017 and 2018, and made his Southland debut as a loose forward in 2018.

It was in Southland that the idea of prop took hold. Stags assistant coach Dale MacLeod and academy manager David Hall sat him down and told him his future was in the front row. "With his physical attributes he was always going to get there," MacLeod told the Tribune in 2024. It was not instant. MacLeod admitted that in his early games at prop for Marist "he got towelled up a few times", and that the Highlanders showed no interest when Southland asked them to help with the project.

Tosi says it was the right call. "Moving to the prop is probably the best thing I could have done," he told the Tribune, adding that the hardest part was letting go of his ego as a No 8. "No No 8 is running around at 140 clicks."

The Stags years were hard on the scoreboard. Tosi played seven games for Southland between 2018 and 2020, all of them off the bench according to rugbyhistory.co.nz, and spent most of his time in the development side. "I didn't win a single one of my seven games with the Stags," he told ClubRugby.nz. He did meet his partner in Invercargill, and he has said that was the best thing about his time there.

Bay of Plenty and one big night

With family in the Bay of Plenty, Tosi moved north. He told ClubRugby.nz that in 2020 he had joined the China Lions, a Global Rapid Rugby team that was run out of Rotorua because of Covid, and that their coach, Bay of Plenty's Clayton McMillan, offered him a place with the Steamers.

He signed for the 2021 NPC and played eight games that season, scoring twice. The second try was the one that changed his life. On 2 October 2021 in Rotorua, Bay of Plenty beat Wellington 33-32, and Tosi scored in the 61st minute. The Hurricanes' player profile says it was that performance against the Wellington Lions that caught their coaches' attention, and the Hurricanes have said he came to them on the recommendation of their former scrum coach, Dan Cron, who was also working with Bay of Plenty. Tosi credits Cron and Richard Watt with changing his preparation, fitness, diet and technique.

He has stayed loyal to the Steamers, playing out of the Greerton Marist club. By October 2026 Wikipedia listed him with 28 games and 15 points for Bay of Plenty, and the province is still beside his name in the All Blacks squad.

Hurricanes

Tosi signed his first full-time contract with the Hurricanes and made his debut against the Crusaders in 2022. He is Hurricane number 295. His first Super Rugby try came in a 53-12 win over Moana Pasifika in Wellington in April 2022.

Tosi calls 2024 his breakthrough season. He played 16 games, and by mid-May the Hurricanes noted he was the only player in the squad to have appeared in every match. On 3 March, at Super Round in Melbourne, he came off the bench against the Reds and scored the winning try in golden-point extra time, sealing a 38-33 win. Head coach Clark Laidlaw said that season that Tosi had shown "he can mix it with the best props in the competition". The Hurricanes topped the table that year but lost a home semi-final to the Chiefs.

He re-signed through to 2026 in May 2024 and then, a year later, through to 2028. "The Canes is where I feel most at home," he said at the time, and Laidlaw added that Tosi had "made massive strides".

The reward came in 2026. Tosi played his part in a record-breaking Hurricanes season, scoring in a 47-24 win over the Blues at Eden Park in May, and on 20 June he started at tighthead in the Super Rugby Pacific final at Hnry Stadium in Wellington, packing down beside Xavier Numia and Asafo Aumua. The Hurricanes beat the Chiefs 60-5, the biggest winning margin in a Super Rugby final, to win their first title since 2016. Tyrel Lomax replaced him after 50 minutes. By the end of the season Wikipedia credited him with 53 games and 25 points for the club.

A club man in Porirua

Unusually for a professional, as ClubRugby.nz noted, Tosi kept playing club rugby. Encouraged by a friend, he turned out for Paremata-Plimmerton in Wellington, debuting in a 43-18 win over Avalon in 2022, and helped the "Hammerheads" win their first Swindale Shield in 2023. By the end of 2025 he had played 16 games for the club, won 12 and scored seven tries.

He has been open about what that club meant to him. "When I arrived, I was struggling both financially and emotionally," he told ClubRugby.nz, explaining that people at the club made sure his young family was looked after. Coach Gerrard Fasavalu says Tosi would arrive three hours before games to spend time with the junior players, and compared him to a former All Blacks tighthead: "He reminds me of Carl Hayman." ClubRugby.nz reported in March 2026 that Tosi would present the club with one of his All Blacks Test jerseys on Good Friday, to hang beside those of All Blacks prop Ken Gray and 1991 World Cup Black Fern Erika Rere.

The All Blacks

Tosi was named in Scott Robertson's first All Blacks squad on 24 June 2024, one of five uncapped players alongside George Bell, Billy Proctor, Cortez Ratima and Wallace Sititi. He told ClubRugby.nz that Robertson's call came from an unknown number while he was waking his children, and that he asked his sister to film their father's reaction when the squad was read out on television. His mother had died in 2015, and he said she was in his thoughts that morning. Robertson said, as quoted by the Southland Tribune, that forwards coach Jason Ryan "fell in love pretty quickly".

His Test debut came on 19 July 2024 (20 July NZ time) against Fiji at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. He came on in the 56th minute and the All Blacks won 47-5. "It all went by in a blur," he said later.

He played seven Tests in his first season, six of them off the bench in the No 18 jersey. The other was his first start, at tighthead against Japan in Yokohama on 26 October 2024, and he marked it with a try in the 33rd minute of a 64-19 win. He has enjoyed reminding his Hurricanes team-mate Warner Dearns, who made the tackle, about it ever since. He then came off the bench in the wins over England at Twickenham and Ireland in Dublin, and the one-point loss to France in Paris.

In 2025 he played nine Tests, eight off the bench. The first of them, against France in Dunedin on 5 July, was the All Blacks' 500th Test win, and Tosi had a hand in it. With France attacking late in a 31-27 game, the All Blacks won a scrum penalty near their own line that helped them clear. ClubRugby.nz reported that Tosi was the tighthead who got the better of the French loosehead. "They're just a different kind of strong over there," he told RNZ a few days later. He went on to Argentina, Perth and the end-of-year tour, coming off the bench in Chicago, at Murrayfield and at Twickenham, and started the final Test of the year, a 52-26 win over Wales in Cardiff.

Dave Rennie took over in 2026. Tosi came off the bench against Italy in Wellington in July and toured South Africa, where he played against the Stormers, the Sharks and the Lions but was not in a Test 23. He returned for the Bledisloe Cup and came off the bench in both wins, 50-19 at Eden Park and 43-21 in Sydney.

His record now reads 19 Tests, two starts, one try and 16 wins. His 17 appearances off the bench have all come in the No 18 jersey.

Style and standing

The NZ Rugby Museum profile calls his move from loose forward to prop "remarkable" and lists his strength, work rate and versatility. He can scrum on either side, though most of his Tests have been at tighthead. The No 8 has not entirely gone: Fasavalu says he sometimes played both positions in the same club game.

The coaches who have worked with him tend to talk about his willingness to learn. Laidlaw, in 2024, called his ability to master a new position a testament to how he challenges himself. Tosi says of Jason Ryan that "he cares a lot about his front rowers", and the Hurricanes describe him as a fan favourite who loves meeting supporters.

Off the field

The NZ Rugby Museum profile notes his "prowess with a guitar". Tosi has played since high school, and he told ClubRugby.nz how the band Six60, who had met the All Blacks at a promotional event in 2024, later invited him to join them on stage at a November concert in Sydney, where he performed their song "We Made It" with them. He and his partner have four children.

Where he is now

Tosi is on the bench at 18 for the Test against Scotland at Murrayfield, which kicks off at 3.10am on Sunday 8 November NZ time. If he gets on, it will be his 20th Test. Wales in Cardiff and England at Twickenham follow on consecutive weekends, then the Nations Championship finals weekend in London at the end of the month. He is contracted to the Hurricanes and New Zealand Rugby until the end of 2028.

Career at a glance

Test figures are from RUGBE's match-by-match All Blacks data to 17 October 2026. Provincial and Super Rugby figures are from Wikipedia (updated 17 October 2026) and rugbyhistory.co.nz.