Billy Vunipola tasered and arrested after assaulting police officer

Billy Vunipola’s battles with alcohol and the ‘what if’ hanging over his career

By Ben Coles

Billy Vunipola has admirably never held back from openly discussing his personal battles, publicly addressing his relationships with alcohol and mental health throughout a career which saw him make his international debut for England at 20 years old and become one of the best No 8s in the world, while also battling a torrid run of injuries.

This latest incident in Majorca, however, is by far the most serious, both in terms of the ramifications – being arrested in a foreign country for the first time – but also the wider context of this current stage of his career at the age of 31, about to depart the club which has become his home for more than a decade in Saracens with his England career also seemingly behind him.

Vunipola went through a 15-month gap between Test matches after being dropped by Eddie Jones following the 2021 Six Nations, before returning for the 2022 tour to Australia off the back of his form for Saracens. During that spell, he spoke with a therapist for seven months.

“It took me so long to get to that stage because I felt like I was indestructible until I got all my injuries,” he told World Rugby last year, having undergone knee surgeries and three fractured forearms.

“I felt like God broke me down because I was too arrogant, too confident in my own powers and I didn’t rely on God enough, which I didn’t. I needed someone to challenge me and take me away from that feeling you carry. 

“Some people after big injuries aren’t the same player. Now I feel like I’m back to just doing it and the next stage is the instincts, believing in myself. It’s a tough balance between being confident and arrogant and I was probably too far on the arrogant side.”

Vunipola also noted the importance of Calum Clark at his club, the former Saracens player who works as a performance psychologist.

In a podcast episode with former Saracens team-mate Jim Hamilton last year, Vunipola revealed that he first started drinking at the age of 25 following his first knee operation.

He said: “I went from not drinking my whole life to getting my first serious injury… and thinking I’m gonna start drinking. Just before that I broke up with my now wife and I don’t know, I was just going through a weird phase of just wanting to be that 20-year-old who never got to be a 20-year-old. It sounds silly, but I never did that.

“Fresh out of school I was playing for Wasps, on the brink of getting relegated. Even at 17, I played my first game in the Prem, so I never got to just be a kid. It sounds ungrateful but I did it at 25 in the middle of my career. It’s no coincidence that all my injuries happened when I went on a bender essentially for 10 months before I went crawling back to my wife.”

He apologised to his England team-mates during the 2019 Six Nations after returning late to the team’s hotel in Chiswick and breaking team protocol, following an alcohol-fuelled night out with former England centre Ben Te’o.

That incident came shortly after Vunipola had told The Times in November 2018 that he had stopped drinking, following a serious conversation during the summer from his family, including his brother, Mako, the Saracens and England prop.

“I had a lecture off my mum and dad, and my brother, and I finally listened to them. I’ve stopped drinking,” he said at the time.

In 2017 after England won the Six Nations, a dishevelled Vunipola was pictured being helped out of a Dublin hotel at 4.30am by a member of England’s security team, an image which was met with an almost positive reaction at the time with England’s players letting off some steam after a second straight Six Nations title.

“I don’t have any memory of that,” Vunipola said in 2019, reflecting on that moment. “All I know is that I am not getting in that state ever again.

“I have learnt from that, it’s a learning curve. I didn’t realise until the day after. It wasn’t a great time for myself, but hopefully I won’t do that to my family again. You’ve got to have some control of yourself and I probably didn’t. 

“I guess I did [say I was teetotal] but you have to own the situation. It’s funny to talk about now, but at the time it wasn’t that funny.”

Now, seven years later, an incident at a similar time in the morning raises serious questions about what happens next for Vunipola. Most importantly in terms of his personal well-being and ahead of any imminent legal ramifications in Spain, but also in terms of his career given that he is at a crucial crossroads; no longer an automatic starter at Saracens with the progress of Ben Earl and arrival of Tom Willis, on the cusp of leaving the club who have helped to nurture him into a world-class player for a new team in a new country and with the door to playing for England again seemingly shut. 

The news, frankly, is concerning.