Paulo Pelesasa

Paulo Pelesasa, listed in full as Paulo Tauiliili-Pelesasa, started his first league match at the Stade Marcel-Deflandre and was off the field after twelve minutes with a sprained elbow and a broken arm. It was his only appearance of the season, and he did not return until February.

Note on his current club: Pelesasa is still listed in Pau‘s squad data. Stade Aurillacois announced in April 2026 that he would join them on loan for the 2026-27 season.

No 8 or lock, 1.91m and 117kg, and 21 years old.

Blacktown, in western Sydney, is where he was born, and Trinity Grammar School is where he found the game. The Waratahs brought him into their age-grade programme in 2017, at twelve, and he left Australia for the Béarn in 2022 to finish his development.

His first professional appearance came in Amsterdam, of all places, in a Challenge Cup match against the Cheetahs in January 2024, at eighteen. A week later he started at the Stade du Hameau against Zebre in a match that decided whether his club would have a home tie in the knockout rounds. They won it by a point.

The club extended him to 2027 in June 2025 despite a season lost almost entirely to the arm, and then sent him to the second division for a year of rugby.

Three senior appearances in four years is not a record to judge a forward on. He is 21, carries 117kg, and the loan is the first real opportunity of his career: a full season of professional rugby rather than a handful of minutes in a Top 14 squad carrying internationals in every back-row position.