No team present at the tournament – as well as the aforementioned, Western Force, Africa Pacific Dragons (coached by Heyneke Meyer and Will Genia), Euskadi (a Basque select squad) and the Italian All-Stars all participated – sent a full-strength side. The meeting was seen as an enjoyable, recreational escapade at the end of a long season.
Indeed, when Newcastle were beaten finalists at the final edition in 2018, the Falcons used it as a development exercise to blood some of their young talent and offer a luxurious send-off to a few outgoing stalwarts.
The 2016 edition was no different. Meyer and Genia were easily the best-known names appearing – and both were coaches; on the playing side, Africa Pacific Dragons had Jimmy Cowan, the former All Blacks scrum-half, in their squad.
The most high-profile among the Saracens present were Mike Ellery, better known for an illustrious career with England sevens, Henry Taylor, who captained the side from scrum-half, Paul Tupai, the legendary Bedford No 8, Jared Saunders, the former hooker, and Tom Whiteley, the current Leicester scrum-half. The side was coached by Ian Vass, Northampton’s former scrum-half and defensive guru who was a contemporary of Tupai’s at Bedford.
On the field, Saracens did not discredit themselves, even securing a victory over Meyer’s Dragons, but they never came too close to adding a third trophy to their 2016 collection. But when in Mauritius, the silver lining to not lifting the genuine silver comes in the form of breathtaking views and paradisiacal extra-curricular activities.
The tournament was a two-day affair and once the finals were finished on Sunday, the tournament organisers, Beachcomber – a Mauritian hotel group, and the local tourist board arranged for a drinks reception for all eight competing teams, officials and media to pore over the weekend’s action in the splendour of Grand Baie. With time at the bar, no one wanted the night to end. So, most in attendance proceeded to the nearby Banana Beach Club, open until the small hours.
This was a venue which most of the players had already sampled during their short stint on the island. On the night of arrival, it was the destination of an unofficial meet-and-greet for the participating teams. One observer described the atmosphere as “peaceful, casual, but full of excitement”. As the night drew to a close, some members of the Italian All-Stars found themselves in an altercation on the street with a local. “I think a bottle was thrown,” the witness added. “And we thought: ‘Holy s---. okay, that’s the end of the night.’”
After the tournament, the players found themselves back in the familiar surrounds of the Banana Beach Club but, once that venue turfed out its patrons, it was time for the night to end. Unbeknownst to those emerging from the bar, however, an hour earlier, out on the street, the Toulon side had got themselves into what they might refer to as the merde. “Their players had been chatting up some of the local girls and some of the local guys didn’t like it,” another eyewitness said. “A punch had been thrown, then the locals went away.”
With the rest of the teams trying to leave the venue and return to their hotels, it was not just taxis which were waiting for them. Saracens, in a case of mistaken identity, were about to become embroiled in a conflict which could have had the most serious and distressing consequences.
‘Guys running around with bricks, poles, glass bottles’
“An hour later, when they were closing, as our taxi pulled up, we heard a man scream – a proper scream – from down the road,” the witness said. “Normally, you hear a bit of shouting after a night out but a scream was a weird one. It was just unfortunate timing, with the Saracens boys coming out of the bar and trying to get taxis home. They were mistaken as the same overseas rugby guys who had caused the issue earlier. One of the Saracens players ran up to us and he had blood all over his shirt. I saw bone.”
Another added: “A big mixture of players were gathered: Saracens, Toulon, Brumbies, Force. Before you know it, this Mercedes rocks up, super smart. This is maybe 3am. Next minute, I remember the big French guy who I was trying to keep standing outside the bar – he was a bit drunk and being a bit of an idiot – he just dropped. I turned around and a guy hit me with a machete. Before I knew it, there were guys running around with bricks, poles, glass bottles. We all ran. We were being chased. We kept running.
“There was a guy with metal, silver teeth. I remember him. He was the one with the machete. They were tiny guys running around. That was the only positive! I circled around to get away from him but I remember thinking: ‘Holy s---, there are 12 people there. I can’t run there.’ So, I side-stepped my way through. If they hadn’t been so small, we’d have been in trouble.”
In scenes better suited to Kill Bill: Volume 1, pandemonium ensued. Players were running in all directions, a group of Mauritians were charging about with lethal weapons, friendly taxi drivers were attempting to defuse the situation by offering lifts to those fleeing. The issue, by this stage, however, was that the damage had been done; many of those present no longer trusted anyone from the island – cab operators included – no matter how valiant their motives.
‘Locals arrived at the clinic with bats and machetes’
Those brave enough to enter a taxi, and those running as if their lives depended on it, eventually found their way back to their hotels. Or, at least, a hotel, even if it wasn’t theirs; somewhere to find solace. Two of the players who had been macheted were advised by the Brumbies physios to head to a local, 24-hour clinic, but one of the injuries was so severe that it required urgent attention in a hospital. As one of the players was accompanied by a coach to the island’s main hospital, for an operation which would keep him out of rugby for seven months, others stayed behind at the clinic while those in better shape were patched up. But the ordeal was not over.
“We waited at the clinic and, when we were finished, we asked the staff to call us a taxi,” said a witness. “We were in the waiting room and a taxi appeared after a minute. ‘Taxi’s here!’ they shout. We look out the window and getting out of the taxi are a load of locals with baseball bats and machetes. The clinic staff locked the door and put the blinds down. After five minutes, they drove away. We called a taxi from a different company and, in the end, we made it back to our hotel.
‘I genuinely thought, this is it’
“Back at the hotel, we did a head count but we were missing one. We were in the lobby trying to sort this out. There were players who had had a few drinks who wanted to go out looking for him and we were just trying to calm them down, saying: ‘No, no, because then you’ll get lost, too.’”
Another added: “We saw the white Mercedes again and I genuinely thought: ‘This is it.’ But he drove past.”
In the end, with the metal-toothed man long arrested, the missing player returned. He walked into the hotel lobby without uttering a word and slumped into a chair. Earlier in the night, when the skirmish had erupted, he was knocked to the ground by the butt of a machete.
When he came to, he ran. It did not matter where, he just ran in the direction he was facing, which happened to be towards the sea. He ran into the Indian Ocean and swam down the shore, only emerging from the warm waters when he was confident the coast was literally clear.
When on dry land, he found himself in the middle of a residential area in Mauritius, at 4am on a Monday morning, with no idea where he was nor how to get home. Fortuitously, a passing taxi stopped to pick him up and took him back to his hotel. “He did a triathlon,” said one of the eyewitnesses.
“It all happened so quickly,” added another. “One guy had gashes down his back and nearly had his finger chopped off. We heard about guys getting held up at the ATM, getting whipped on the legs.
“It was crazy.”
