Alamanda Lolo Motuga (born 11 September 1994) is a professional

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player who plays as a flanker for

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

club Moana Pasifika. Born in New Zealand, he represents

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

at international level after qualifying on ancestry grounds.

Early life

Motuga was educated at Manurewa High School in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. He began playing rugby for Manurewa in the Counties-Manukau Amateur Federation Championship. He also played rugby sevens with the Auckland Marist team.

Club career

In 2020 he joined the squad for the 2020 Mitre 10 Cup. In November 2020 he represented Moana Pasifika in their inaugural match against the Māori All Blacks. In October 2021 he signed to Moana Pacifica for the 2022 season.

International career

In February 2016 he was selected for the Samoa national rugby sevens team to play in the

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

and

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

legs of the 2015–16 World Rugby Sevens Series. In May 2016 he was part of the Samoan team that won the 2016 Paris Sevens. He went on to represent Samoa in 36 sevens competitions from 2016. In July 2019 he was selected for the Samoa national rugby union team for the 2019 World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup, making his debut for the national side against Tonga. His performances for Samoa and Samoa Sevens earned him a call-up to the Samoa squad for the 2019 Rugby World Cup as a replacement for Afa Amosa. He competed for

at the

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

References

External links

*
Rugby World Cup profile
1994 births Samoan rugby union players Samoa international rugby union players Living people Rugby union flankers Moana Pasifika players 21st-century Samoan sportsmen Counties Manukau rugby union players 2019 Rugby World Cup players 2023 Rugby World Cup players Pacific Games silver medalists for Samoa Pacific Games medalists in rugby sevens Samoa international rugby sevens players New Zealand people of Samoan descent Olympic rugby sevens players for Samoa Rugby sevens players at the 2024 Summer Olympics {{Samoa-rugbyunion-bio-stub