Record-breaking England halfback Ben Youngs has lifted the lid on the side's woes off the field at the 2011 Rugby World, including the dwarf-throwing scandal at a Queenstown bar. New Zealand Herald composite photo
England rugby legend Ben Youngs has opened up on his side’s 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign from hell – a trip that included a “dwarf-chucking” scandal in Queenstown, claims players sexually harassed a hotel cleaner and star back Manu Tuilagi’s arrest in downtown Auckland.
His revelations about the wild night in Queenstown include how one of his teammates suffered a back injury “picking a dwarf up”.
The most capped-player in England rugby history has shared new details of the highs and lows of his record-breaking career in his new book; Beyond the Line – My Life in Rugby.
And Youngs - a veteran of 127 tests for England and a further two for the British & Irish Lions – makes no secret of the pain he still feels about his nation’s 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign in New Zealand; where they were later slated for off-field antics as well as being dumped out in the quarter final stage.
Those antics include members of the team – including centre Mike Tindall, famously married to royal Zara Phillips - being photographed and filmed at a dwarf-tossing event during a wild night in Queenstown.
Coach Martin Johnson had given the team some time off to “unwind” after their tournament-opening win over Argentina.
After a boozy dinner paid for by the Rugby Football Union (RFU), some players headed to popular Queenstown nightspot the Altitude Bar which was hosting an event dubbed the ‘Mad Midget Weekender’.
Youngs didn’t go and discovered the extent of the antics when he talked to room-mate Tom Croft the next morning.
“He told me they’d ended up in this bar where there was a dwarf-chucking competition event on,” Youngs wrote in Beyond the Line.
“‘Why didn’t you give me a ring then?’ I said. ‘That sounds like fun’. We had a laugh about it.”
The positivity within the camp diminished later that day as team management sought out details of what had happened.
Youngs wrote: “We had been given permission to go out and no one had been harmed.
“It involved consenting adults – big ones and little ones.”
But it soon turned into an early-Rugby World Cup scandal as photos of the England players with ‘Mad Midget Weekender’ entertainers had been posted online.
Video footage of the night also started circulating.
Johnson tried to play down the event, telling the chasing New Zealand and British media: “Rugby player drinks beer... shocker”.
Youngs wrote in Beyond the Line that Johnson told his players to concentrate on rugby, hoping the drama would fade.
“Because Mike Tindall was involved – who had just become a member of the royal family, having married Zara Phillips – there was more petrol poured on the fire,” Youngs wrote.
“The media were all over it.
“Fortunately, none of the journalists ever found out that Crofty [Tom Croft] had done his back picking a dwarf up and was on the physio’s coach for three days, or we’d have been given more grief.”
Youngs said during the tour there was a “lot of stuff going on off the pitch” that saw the side being depicted as “the tournament’s bad guys”.
Three players were later investigated by RFU officials after a lewd comment was made in front of a cleaner in the side’s Dunedin hotel.
James Haskell and Chris Ashton were handed suspended fines and warned about future conduct after being found guilty by the RFU for “misconduct for allowing a woman to enter the hotel room”.
The head of a butchered wild pig was also put outside Ashton’s hotel room by a teammate as a “nice surprise for him”, Youngs wrote.
Everyone associated with the England squad probably hoped things couldn’t get any worse after the side was knocked out of the tournament by France.
But the following day they did in spectacular style, with midfielder Manu Tuilagi being arrested by police after jumping off the Waiheke Island ferry as it prepared to dock at its terminal in downtown Auckland.
Youngs recounts the moments leading up to the latest scandal that engulfed his team in Beyond the Line.
Several players had decided to go “somewhere quiet and out of the way to drown our sorrows”. The trip was meant to provide a “refined lunch”.
He said the group’s intentions “were good”, but in hindsight: “As inspired decisions go, that one turned out to be right up there with a couple of late ones at Altitude Bar”.
The group spent several hours drinking on the island, before hopping on a ferry “rammed” with Argentina fans heading to that night’s All Blacks/Pumas quarterfinal.
As the ferry neared the terminal, Tuilagi stripped off to his underwear while on the top floor of the vessel.
“The Argentinians were going bananas. The boat was shaking,” Youngs wrote in Beyond the Line.
“We were standing there, holding his clothes, merrily pissed, not really thinking this through. Suddenly there was this massive splash and a huge cheer, and Manu was in the water.”
Youngs said there was an “alarming moment” when he feared Tuilagi might go under the ferry as it started reversing.
When he finally did manage to swim to the wharf, police officers were waiting for him.
Tuilagi was arrested while still wearing just his undies. He was released after police issued him with a warning for disorderly behaviour.
Youngs recalled the moment he told the side’s embattled media officer about the arrest when he returned to the England hotel.
“He was looking absolutely exhausted, like one of Shackleton’s men on Elephant Island. I reckon he’s lost 15 kilos – and half his hair. He was a frazzled wreck of a man, just skin and bones.
“All he wanted, I’m sure, was to get home with no further dramas.
“‘Hi Will,’ I said. ‘Have you got a sec? Manu’s just been arrested’. He didn’t speak for a while.
“Then he said: ‘You’re kidding me, right?’.”
Youngs wrote in Beyond the Line how Chignell had stressed to the side before they departed to New Zealand “that we would be under the microscope”.
“It’s a rugby mad country anyway, but at a World Cup there would be no hiding place. Everyone had a mobile phone, so we needed to be on our guard – and on our best behaviour.”
England’s quarter final exit – and the issues that plagued them off the field – led to the team being hammered by the UK press.
It also was the end of the line for several members of the coaching and managing team; most notably Johnson.
The England rugby legend announced his retirement at a press conference, the day before a panel was to review him and his coaching team.
English rugby bosses also fined Tindall $58,000 and cut him from England’s elite squad.
Tuilagi was fined $6000 for his antics.
Fourteen years on, Youngs confided in his new book – published by Pan Macmillan – that the pain from the side’s tournament from hell still hadn’t gone.
“Dwarf-tossing, ferry-jumping, ball-tampering – England’s 2011 World Cup campaign had it all,” Youngs wrote.
“And, boy, did it leave me with regrets.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 33 years of newsroom experience.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.