Career
He currently plays for the Newcastle Falcons in the Aviva Premiership, and has appeared numerous times for his national team Samoa. He previously played for Parma in Italy and for Leicester Tigers in the Aviva Premiership. As an incredibly strong player, Tuilagi uses his blend of pace and power to good effect, proving a nightmare for many defenses.
Such a combination of speed and strength makes him very difficult for defences to handle.
The Tuilagi family has strong connections with Leicester Tigers. Alex"s brothers Henry, Anitelea (Andy), and Fereti (Freddie) are all former players and two younger brothers, Vavae and Manu Tuilagi both played in a game for Leicester Tigers against the Classic All Blacks, on 25 May 2008.
Whilst at Parma, whom he played with for two seasons, he was equal second top try scorer of the league for the 2003-2004 season, with 12 tries in total for the season. He helped them get to the semi-finals of both the domestic competition, and the Parker Pen Shield.
He made his debut for Samoa in a 2003 Rugby World Cup qualifier against Fiji in June 2002.
He was included in the Pacific Islanders rugby union team tour to Europe in late 2006 and played a significant part in the Samoan national teams" successes in the Rugby World Cup in 2007. Alesana Tuilagi enjoyed his best-ever season in 2010/11, finishing the season as the club"s top try-scorer and as Aviva Premiership top scorer for the first time. Tuilagi has started eight of Tigers’ nine finals since 2006/07, missing out only on the Guinness Premiership Final against London Irish in 2009 due to suspension.
Tuilagi was again included in Samoa"s squad to the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
He started in all 4 pool games and scored a hat trick against Namibia. After the eight years with Leicester, Tuilagi left following the 2011-2012 Aviva Premiership season to join Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Shining Arcs of the Japanese Top League.
Tuilagi was part of the Samoan squad that beat Australia 32 – 23 on 17 July 2011 at Sydney in a test match. Tuilagi made the opening try as Samoa ran in 4 tries to Australia"s two.
On 25 June 2013 Tuilagi was called up to the Samoan squad for the Société Anonyme tour and the 2013 Pacific Cup.