Rugby New York signed Kalolo Tuiloma for the 2022 Major League Rugby season. The 31-year-old tighthead prop (32 in June) is 6’4″ and 304 lbs.
Kalolo was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and grew up in the Auckland suburbs. He attended Aoere College where he played rugby at No.8 and then completed his education at Timaru Boys’ High School.
He helped South Canterbury gain the Heartland Championship in 2013 and then moved back to Auckland where he played for Bombay Rugby Club with his coach Darryl Suasua, converting him to prop from flanker. The team won the McNamara Fup, Counties Manukau’s Premier Club competition in 2014 through 2018 with Kalolo scoring in each final.
In 2016, he moved along with his Bombay coach to Counties Manukau where he played in the Mitre 10 Cup from 2015-2019. He signed a 7-month contract as a medical joker to play in France with Grenoble for the remainder of the season. In 2018 he played 192 minutes in 10 Super Rugby matches with the Highlanders, but a neck injury in 2019 curtailed his playing. In 2020, “the Bulldozer” played 124 minutes in 5 matches with the Utah Warriors and scored 2 tries.
He played with Northland in 2020, before returning to Counties Manukau for the 2021 National Provincial Championship. He also made his debut for Samoa in a two-match 2023 Rugby World Cup qualifier, against Tonga on July 10, 2021, in Auckland, and July 17 in Hamilton, with Samoa winning the series. He also scored a couple of tries. He also played two matches against the Māori All Blacks.
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