Billy Vunipola was confronted by a spectator wearing a Munster shirt following the province's defeat to Saracens on Saturday. The Munster fan left the stands and confronted the Saracens and England number eight following the Heineken European Champions Cup semi-final at the Ricoh Arena.
The Munster management were asked about the incident after the match but a press officer intervened before the question could be answered and it was pointed out that nobody could be sure whether the individual was a Munster fan or not.
“We’re not going to be talking about Munster supporters that we didn’t see,” the Munster press officer explained. “We’ll keep it to the rugby, we didn’t even see that, we’re not going to comment on that. We don’t even know if this could be a Saracens fan wearing a Munster jersey, we don’t know anything about it, sorry. We’ll skip that.”
Vunipola became embroiled in a controversy when he ‘liked’ a homophobic post from Australian player Israel Folau on social media. Vunipola himself posted that “man was made for woman to procreate that was the goal no?”
After the match Vunipola said: “From my point of view there is no intention to hurt anybody. I believe in what I believe in. I felt a lot of love, a lot of kindness shown to me.”
Mark McCall the former Ireland and Ulster centre and Saracens director of rugby said the incident had been dealt with by the club.
“The club dealt with it, it’s been dealt with, it was dealt with decisively, it was dealt with quickly and it was dealt with, in my opinion, fairly,” said McCall.
“Then we just got on with the rugby and that’s what we’re here to do, get on with the rugby. We had a great week and played well today and now we look forward.”
