I just don’t know when to stop
VUNIPOLA’S SHAME OVER SPAIN ARREST
BILLY VUNIPOLA revealed he never knows when to call time on a night out in the wake of his Spanish arrest on a team social last week.
The Saracens No.8 also said he sobbed down the phone to wife Simmone and had an awkward chat with his mother, Iesinga, who is a Methodist minister, after he had spent a night in the cells.
Vunipola was tasered twice by local police at around 4am on Sunday morning, with staff at Palma’s Epic bar, unable to eject him after downing four amaretto and orange juice drinks to finish off the evening.
Saracens have drawn a line under the episode, which saw Vunipola fined 240 euros and handed a four-month suspended jail sentence. The RFU could still charge the back row with bringing the game into disrepute.
And the 31-year-old (right) blamed the fracas on his inability to stop drinking once he has got the taste for it, after being teetotal for two years.
“My issue is just not knowing when to stop, that’s probably why I stopped drinking for so long,” he said.
“If I drink, I get to a place where I probably forget what I did. I realised too late that I needed to calm down. I caused a huge amount of embarrassment and put a spotlight on the club when they were trying to do something nice for us.” Vunipola faced the music at Saracens on Wednesday after the squad and coaches had returned from Spain.
But the phone call to his wife, and mother of their son Judah, was harder.
“I called my wife and had to explain to her what had happened,” Vunipola told the Daily Mail.
“I remember saying, ‘I’m so sorry’ and I started crying. I was just gutted and embarrassed.”
Next up was his mum. “That was a tough conversation – trying to explain to her the reasons why I did it,” said Vunipola.
He could not recall being tasered, adding: “I guess I was lucky I had a bit more belly because I didn’t feel it as much! “Even when I was on the ground, they were shocked that I still had the energy to resist them, which is what I got done for.”