Marco Lorenzo Fepulea’i

He has played in New Zealand, the United States, France and now England, and arrived at Bayonne as emergency cover.

Marco Lorenzo Fepuleai, who appears on team sheets as Marco Fepulea’i, has played professionally in New Zealand, the United States, France and then England. He joined Bayonne as a medical joker and was gone within four months.

Note on his current club: Fepulea’i is still listed in Bayonne’s squad data. He signed for Mont-de-Marsan on 15 December 2025 for the rest of that season, and joined Gloucester in England for 2026-27.

Prop, 1.83m and 128kg, born in New Zealand on 25 April 1995 and Samoan by nationality. Only Tevita Tatafu, at 133kg, is heavier in the Bayonne squad data.

Fepulea’i played for Samoa Under-20s and for Auckland in the Mitre 10 Cup, then spent two seasons in Major League Rugby with the Colorado Raptors and the LA Giltinis. The Blues took him for the 2021 Super Rugby Aotearoa season.

Samoa capped him around the 2022 Pacific Nations Cup.

In August 2022 he moved to France, joining Colomiers in Pro D2 with an option for a second season. Bayonne brought him into the Top 14 as injury cover at the start of 2025-26, which is the short, conditional contract that clubs use to get through a crisis at prop.

He did not convert it into a longer stay. Mont-de-Marsan took him in December, and Gloucester signed him the following June.

At 1.83m and 128kg he is the classic short, immensely heavy tighthead, and that build travels: it is why a player can move between four countries and five competitions and always find someone who needs him. Five clubs in five seasons is not instability so much as the market for a specialist doing exactly what it does.