Pio Muarua

Three Pro D2 finals in three years with Grenoble. He started all three and lost all three, then lost two promotion play-offs by two points and by three minutes.

Pio Muarua started three consecutive Pro D2 finals for Grenoble, in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Grenoble lost all three. Twice they went into a promotion play-off afterwards and lost that as well, once by two points with three minutes left, and once by two points with three minutes left again.

That is four years of being ninety minutes from the Top 14. He got there in the end by signing for Clermont.

A No. 8 who can also play second row, 1.91m and 120kg, born in Lautoka in Fiji and a Fijian universities international.

Agen brought him to France in 2015, into their academy, and gave him his first Top 14 minutes in the back row. What followed was a decade of loans and short contracts: Soyaux Angoulême in 2018-19, Vannes in 2019-20, a permanent deal at Vannes for 2020-21 that was immediately interrupted by a January loan to Mont-de-Marsan, and then Grenoble from July 2021 on two years.

Grenoble is where he became a fixture. Second in the regular season in 2022-23 and beaten 14-3 by Oyonnax in the final. Runners-up again in 2023-24, beaten 16-9 by Vannes, then 20-18 by Montpellier in the play-off. Top of the table in 2024-25, a 38-17 semi-final win over Provence, a 24-19 final defeat to Montauban, and an 11-13 play-off loss to Perpignan on 14 June 2025.

Clermont had been interested since December 2024, looking for cover after Peceli Yato left, and confirmed the signing in March. He made his debut in round two at La Rochelle.

He is a heavy, low carrier who has played most of his rugby in a division where that is the whole job. At 30 this is his first proper run at the top flight.