Dropping tunes and dropping kilos: All Blacks prop Pasilio Tosi embraces Dave Rennie regime

Friday, 10 July 2026

Pasilio Tosi may have jammed on stage with New Zealand’s biggest band, but the giant All Blacks prop might have met his musical match in fellow guitar maestro Dave Rennie.

The new national team coach has had little time to get his feet under the desk, but among all the new tactics and game plans being delivered, he has also ensured to set the off-field tone with the strumming of some strings.

“I didn’t know that he could play it, and then I was in the team room and he had the guitar on, and he was actually pretty good,” Tosi tells the The Post, of what was literally music to his ears during last week’s build-up to the season-opening test against France in Christchurch.

Rennie, Tosi says, has already got up in team meetings and taught the group new songs. The first was the iconic Māori one, Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi, and then a famed Fijian one, Eda Sa Qaqa.

His aim is for players to learn one for every culture that is represented in the squad, even including German, thanks to the heritage of new call-up Anton Segner.

“And I love that, it’s cool, because I’m big on connections,” Tosi, Levin-born, of Tongan-heritage, says. “I believe that if the culture and the connections in the team are good, it shows in how we play on the field.”

Pertinent comments, those, given it was an apparent lack of team culture which led to NZ Rugby and previous coach Scott Robertson’s parting of ways.

The Rennie regime is different. And Tosi is tasked with playing a key role. Fellow prop George Bower, Hurricanes team-mate Fehi Fineanganofo and reinstated team doctor James McGarvey are the others proficient with the guitar.

“He is the boss, and what the boss says goes, so if he tells me to teach a song, I’ll teach a song, and if he tells me to sing, I’ll sing, so whatever he wants he gets,” Tosi quips.

“I’m a pretty out-there guy, an extrovert, so they just give it [the song-teaching job] to me, because I’m not afraid to get in front of the team. It’s pretty nerve-racking at first but it’s pretty cool and easier to do it when boys buy-in and want to learn, too.”

After all, this is a man who can lay claim to have played on stage in front of a crowd of thousands, in Sydney last December, when Six60 invited him to help perform their new single We Made It.

That “once-in-a-lifetime experience” had come through a connection formed with the band at a promotional event three months earlier.

Tosi’s musical background stems from his days at intermediate school, where he was in a ukulele band called The Mandarins. Progressing to learn the bass guitar, then the guitar, the favourite school lunchtime activity became “go to the music room and just jam out a few songs with the boys”.

Now, he plays by ear, keeping the guitar close-by at home for the chance to try a new tune.

“If I hear something on the radio or see something on social media that I want to play, it’s easy for me to just pick up the guitar and try learn how to play it,” he says.

“It’s just a real fun hobby for me to disconnect, when I can get into my own wee world.”

But tunes are not the only thing Tosi is dropping under this Rennie regime.

Back from an ankle niggle, via the bench, for Saturday’s second Nations Championship test against Italy at his Hurricanes home ground of Hnry Stadium in Wellington, the 27-year-old 16-test tighthead also has a focus on shedding weight from his hefty 140kg frame.

While that is already around 15kg less than what he was as a whopping No 8 in Southland club rugby half a dozen years ago, the onus is now on losing 2-3 more kilos. The reason? To keep up with Rennie’s self-titled “optimistic” high-tempo style, and off his ruthless ‘red line’ list measuring ‘BIGGA’ (back in game, go again) movements, which hasn’t taken long to be be waved in front of the players at training this week.

“A couple of boys got caught out and had to do a few down and ups here and there,” Tosi says. “It looked pretty hard.

“I don’t want to be part of that. And a huge step for me is to trim up a wee bit so that getting up off the ground isn’t too hard… that’ll just come with training and the way that I eat.

“As a prop, I don’t want to be too heavy, I want to find the balance where I can get around the field right and still be strong in the scrum.

“The fitter you are, the better the footy is for you.”