Brad Barritt

At 5am, under the watchful eye of the duty master, a schoolboy Brad Barritt stood, statue-still, for a 40-minute uniform inspection. It was old school, in every sense. South African schools were tough, but his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all Rhodesian internationals, so he was made of sterner stuff.

The faceless industrial estate that the sat nav steers us towards is one we’ve all seen a thousand times in any town anywhere. It’s almost definitely not what Sir Ebenezer Howard had in mind when he founded Welwyn Garden City back in 1920. Admittedly, anyone who has been to Welwyn Garden City knows that if you go there expecting an English equivalent to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, you’re going be disappointed. 

But, nonetheless, the identikit, industrial-unit uniform that is modern-day business, would have had Ebenezer – the man who pioneered the concept of having urban towns surrounded by greenbelts – reaching for his planting pots. 

And yet, ironically, it’s here that Rugby is being given a lesson in the power of the green bean. Of the coffee kind, that is. “Most people think they’re brown,” explains Justin Stockwell, the co-founder of Tiki-Tonga Coffee. “But that’s only when they’re roasted, they’re green before that.”

In the few minutes we get to chat, while our interviewee has his picture taken, he imparts a wealth of coffee knowledge. “The idea that single origin coffee is the best is bollocks,” he says. “It just means they don’t have the expertise to blend it properly.”

To get the right blend that has enough kick, to go with the right flavour, you have to blend, he says. “Robusta has all the caffeine, but arabica has the flavour,” says Justin, who’s been in the coffee business – either importing machines or beans – for the best part of four decades. 

“Robusta has double the amount of caffeine, because it grows at sea level so has to ward off pests,” he continues, adding, “and after you’ve made your coffee with it you should use it for slug repellent, it really wards off the pests.”

Arabica, explains Justin, grows at altitude, but what it lacks in caffeine it makes up in flavour – [tasty] beans means heights, if you will. There’s also other factors to consider when making your blend: water content, harvest, roasting temperature, origin. It’s an art, supported by science. Much like making a good whisky blend really. “Also,” he adds, “you know your coffee beans are off if they don’t glisten – if they don’t have that, then they’re just wood basically.” 

Even after just ten minutes in his company, it’s clear Justin is the most avid of bean counters, fully immersed in the culture of coffee. By now, his business partner Brad Barritt, has returned to the table. “All coffee brands have gone hipster East London, and we’re not trying to be like the trendy guys with beards,” he says.

We point out that the room we’re in does have a fixie [fixed gear bike] on the wall, a drum kit, table tennis table, barrels for tables, and East London-approved pendant lighting. The Saracens centre laughs, especially when head of coffee development Jackson chips in, “wait until you see the Tiki Toss”.

Tiki Toss, in case you’re not familiar, is a game whereby you swing a ring attached to a piece of string towards a hook in the hope of connecting the two. The Tiki Tonga office space also serves as a showroom for the other half of the business, the machines. Ensuring they have all the amusements of a modern-day coffee joint is essential. 

But back to the non-beardy brand. “Mainstream sport is home to some of the biggest coffee drinkers around and we wanted to represent that,” continues Brad. “Not that we’re defined by the world of sport, we also supply cafes, restaurants and blue-chip companies.”

“One of the things that was the spark for me,” chips in Justin, “was when I saw an NFL report on them using caffeine in their training camps and then the impact caffeine had on other athletes such as cyclists and triathletes.”

The performance side has been reflected in the blends – of which they’ve got four with a fifth on its way. “We’ve tried blends that are used in pubs, corporate etc. and then two specialists blends with high caffeine content that pack a bit more of a punch and you can use pre-workout.”

“Studies show that 45 minutes pre-exercise is when caffeine will have its best success in terms of workout and there are other health studies growing and growing in favour of coffee – life span, kidney support, even neurological effect, helping staying sharp and focused.”

Jackson and Joe, in the background, offer their own facts. “If you drink four to five coffees a day you live longer,” says Jackson. “Really?” “Yeah, a study said drink four or five cups and you’ll live longer.”

“There was a study I read today that says if you drink two cups of coffee a day it reduces your post-workout muscle stress by 48 per cent,” offers Joe.

Either way, the message is: coffee is good, drink it. 

How the former England midfield man got involved came down to his own ‘Jerry Maguire’ moment. “I had an op in 2015 and after I come out of, I had this sense of euphoria, probably due to the medication,” explains Brad, half-laughing. “And I fired off some weird and wonderful emails and one of them was to Justin – who I met through the club, he’s a season ticket holder. I said something like, ‘listen, I have this passion for coffee, how do you feel about launching a coffee brand connected to sport?’.”

The business is now in year three. From year one to two the growth was 400 per cent, and, reckons Justin, year two to three will ‘go way over that’. They’ve opened a retail outlet in South Africa, have stalls at Saracens games and three other Premiership clubs, Lord’s, Tour of Great Britain, Tough Mudder and GB Hockey. Their blends are sold to companies across the UK.

We’re in Welwyn Garden City weeks before Saracens hit the headlines courtesy of a newspaper report on players’ interests, but Brad unwittingly reiterates how his club support their players. “They’re big supporters of people having outside interests,” he says. “In our first year it was great to get Saracens on board [allowing them to have stands], but, as of this year, we’re official supplier and they’re not doing anything to look after to me – it’s very professional. It has to be, because hopefully this will outlast me leaving Saracens. As players you want to be taken seriously and you have to do things by the book and go down the right channels.”

Coffee was once the fifth biggest export of Zimbabwe. The beans grown in the southern African country were known for their ‘strong aromas’ and ‘rich chocolaty’ flavours. 

But those were different times, and the country’s economic collapse as a result of the Robert Mugabe regime, led to the extinction of the industry. 

Although this was long before Brad had even so much as tried a flat white, let alone thought of Tiki-Tonga, he knows only too well of the troubles of this former coffee nation. “My dad was a third-generation rugby player for Rhodesia,” he explains, using the country’s former name.  “He also represented Natal, just pre-professionalism, but he played for Rhodesia, his father had captained Rhodesia, and his grandfather also played for Rhodesia.”

“My parents left a few months before I was born, but my brother was born in Zimbabwe,” he continues. “It’s devastating in terms of what’s happened, the economic collapse and a lot of people being uprooted. I think when you see by the amount of ex-Zimbabweans and Rhodesians across the world and how successful they’ve been, it’s probably been because they’ve got that hunger and passion.

“My aunt and uncle live partially there,” he says, adding, “not because they have to, because they love the country, it’s a beautiful country.”

Growing up in Durban, both of Brad’s parents had roots in the UK, and but for one decision by his dad, could even have been born in England and not South Africa. “He [my dad] actually came with Rhodesia to play in the UK,” says Brad. “He played against a few clubs, including Leicester, and he was offered a post to play for them, but subsequently chose to move to South Africa, and Durban, where there was a dual-playing work opportunity for him. He was in the motoring industry and still is – he owns a big car rental company in South Africa. Rugby didn’t put bread on the table back then, but I think he’d loved to have played professional rugby, he was a backrow at school, then second row, then ended up in the front row.”

Brad’s own rugby career kicked off at his local club, aged five, but it was another sport that caught his eye first. “I’d say my first love was tennis,” he says. “From about eight to 12, I played a lot of tennis and took it quite seriously. It was only when I went to boarding school for high school that the camaraderie of rugby and playing with your best mates proved to be more appealing than tedious hours of training on your own.”

Return to Worm Mountain, Taekwondo Sleepover, Mouse and Black Math have all helped put Botha’s Hill, a town some 40 minutes from Durban, on certain maps. These bands (or solo acts, not entirely sure) are part of a presumably wondrous eThekwini psychedelic music scene and all recorded at the town’s Trash Studio, which seems to be something of an institution in certain circles. 

Yet despite all this musical glitz, what Botha’s Hill is more renowned for, is schoolboy rugby, specifically that played at Kearsney College, where Brad attended. 

Before the rugby came into play however, he first had to adapt to boarding school life. “I’d say in my first year, I was like, ‘what are my parents doing to me?’ but I think the subsequent four years I absolutely loved it. 

“It was a shock to the system,” he says, “but you have to get used to it. Back then it was still quite traditional and you had to be a junior for a senior in the school – you polished his shoes, made his bed, that kind of thing. 

“Early mornings, you’d rise for punishments such as weeding the gardens at five in the morning – you’d be on your knees weeding this patch of grass, with the seniors looking over what you did.  

“Probably the worst thing was early morning rising where, at 5am, you had to put on your No.1 uniform - you know, tie, blazer, long pants, smart shoes – and then you would wake up the duty master for inspection. He’d stand there for ten minutes, then say, ‘go get into your No.2’, which was a brown, khaki uniform, and then repeat the process. Then it was, ‘go back and get into your sport kit’ and you’d do it all over again, ten minutes of standing still hoping your kit was perfect. It was a 40-minute ordeal when you’re already shattered and could hardly keep your eyes open – you’d definitely get your laundry right the next week.” 

It was, he says, these experiences that gave him a ‘good grounding’, teaching him ‘humility’ and ‘respect’. As he grew into the school, his prominence on the rugby field grew, playing in the centres and fly-half, and kicking goals too – and in front of huge crowds.  “I was saying to a few of the guys at the weekend that we’d regularly have 10,000 people turn up for a high school game,” recalls Brad. “In my final year at school our high-school games were broadcast on Super Sport three times. 

“It’s probably a little bit sad and disappointing in a way,” he muses, “because unless you go on and make a Super Rugby franchise or take professional rugby on elsewhere, rugby is always going to be a step back after – that’s why you have problems with local club rugby in South Africa. 

“Schoolboy rugby is put on a pedestal and while some go on, it’s the guys caught in between that end up not playing anymore because it’s too disappointing to step down and play local rugby where there’s only your long lost uncle and his dog coming to watch the game.”

Cricket had also vied for Brad’s attention at school. “At 16 I was a first-level cricketer and around that point I had to make a decision. I’d played the whole cricket season and had a successful rugby season, playing for Natal schoolboys, and been part of South Africa under-18 and South Africa academy training. But for my final school year I stepped back from cricket, and used the cricket season to prepare for the rugby season and it paid dividends – I end up captaining the school , playing for South African schoolboys and was offered a Sharks contract.”

Not the biggest of schools in South Africa, with, says Brad, ‘only 500-600 boys as opposed to 1,500 at the big schools’, but they competed at the highest level, being the top team in Kwazulu-Natal and rated among the very best in the country. It was this success that led him to play in front of the TV cameras as a teenager and at huge rugby festivals. “Some of those would have crowds bigger than Super Rugby crowds today,” he says.

It was at one of those festivals with the Super Sport cameras rolling that led to Brad being signed by the Sharks. “There was one game shown on national television when I was probably 16 or 17, and I had a great game,” he says. “I was a goalkicker – I always was until about 21 – and it was one of those days when everything went right. I scored a try, set up a try, kicked all my goals, made a few big hits – at that point, there was the outlook that it was something I could do full time.”

A straight-A student, Brad considered a career in medicine first. “My parents were always very cautious of me not closing off other opportunities, it was always education, education,” says Brad.   

Those opportunities included a move to England. “A scout who was linked to Bath had seen some of my schoolboy games and had got in touch.”

Brad’s background meant that a move to English rugby was always something he’d consider.

“England was always part of my growing up,” he says. “My parents being Rhodesian with English backgrounds [his dad’s side in London, his mum’s Devon and Cornwall] meant there was never a huge emotional connection to representing the Springboks. 

“I grew up there and it was a possibility, but the idea of coming to England – it wasn’t an emotional decision to not do it.” 

So he went for a week in Bath with an open mind. “I came over
to UK, spent a weekend with the England under-19 side at a camp in Bath, run by Brian Ashton. Danny Cipriani, Dom Waldouck, Tom Youngs and Dylan Hartley were all at the same camp.”

They made an offer of a role at Bath Rugby and a scholarship to Bath University, but he turned it down. “I think at the time, I was possibly a little bit immature,” he admits. “I think the whole week was training in minus temperatures and snow, so, being a young kid from Durban that had never seen snow, that was a big shock to the system.”

A business science degree and a place with the Sharks was the alternative. The degree only lasted a year, but the rugby was more fruitful, making his Super Rugby debut straight after a first year in the Currie Cup squad. “It’s all about timing,” he says, “it was fortuitous the squad had had a really bad year that year and the guy who took over in the New Year put me straight into the Super Rugby squad.

“I’d looked up to the guys in my backline that year,” he admits. “Ruan Pienaar was the nine, Butch James and Tony Brown were the tens, and I ended up playing the whole season at 12 with Waylon Murray outside centre, Francois Steyn and JP Pietersen on the wings and Percy Montgomery at fullback.”

The team that had finished 13th, ended up finishing fifth and then in 2007, ‘topped the log’. “We had a home semi-final and beat the Auckland Blues , and then lost in the 83rd minute in the final to a Bryan Habana try, which I still have nightmares about. I think in the moment none of us had heard the siren so we didn’t take about three opportunities to kick the ball out and then after about 17 phases it ends up wide to Bryan and he traces a line under the poles, they convert and we lose. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

That 20-19 loss to the Bulls in front of 54,000, doesn’t just still hurt for Brad, but Sharks fans too, as it would be the first of three titles for their opponents. “It was my first real disappointment at senior level and to this day the Sharks have never won Super Rugby.”

A year later, Saracens came calling. The very next day after winning the Currie Cup, he got on a plane to London.

Saracens was an opportunity to travel, to study, to reconnect with his family in the UK and play for Francois Pienaar’s former club. “I’ve always known about Saracens because of him,” says Brad. “I grew up watching him, and then the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and he came here shortly afterwards which got a lot of press and I started following the team.”

Arriving in an ‘unsettling year’, Eddie Jones  was coach but would leave soon after, before Richard Graham took over and then Brendan Venter arrived. “Then there was a huge revolution, a huge cultural revolution,” states Brad. “He came in a couple of weeks before the end of the season and told 19-20 players they wouldn’t be there the following year.

“I remember chatting to the S&C coach at the end of the season and he said, ‘at this point we have 13 players pulling up for pre-season’.

“Up to that point Saracens had very much been a team that, on their day, could beat anyone, but getting that level to where it should be week-in, week-out, was the difficult part. Brendan, Ed [Griffiths] and Mark [McCall] instilled in us a culture that was about people playing for Saracens for the right reasons. It was about playing for Saracens and it being only about Saracens, putting aside any personal ambitions. Some of those values they instilled back then are still at the core of us today.”

That first season of the revolution, the side finished ninth, but, reckons Brad, the fans saw something different. “We had a squad of players who, by Saracens standards, didn’t have the big names but the team were viciously competitive and they had a never-say-die attitude.

“Brendan took a lot of anxiety from players worrying about making mistakes in the game because he made a difference between ‘effort errors’ and ‘skill errors’ – if the effort was right, it was enough by him. You saw a team transform itself, and become a really tough team to breakdown. He instilled a defensive ethos with Paul Gustard, something that also characterises Saracens now. 

“I think what Mark has done in subsequent years is that he’s
built on those foundations and made it a lethal attacking team
at the same pace.”

Brad talks effusively about the importance of the players who survived Brendan’s cull to become the leaders, namechecking Steve Borthwick, Hugh Vyvyan and Neil de Kock. 

“You got a sense of people wanting to be there, people wanted to come to work every day. Brendan created a culture where they were treated well and it inspired them to do better. Whether guys were starting, on the bench, or just part of the group, for the most you had a very collective group who wanted the best for each other. The guys who benefited most from it now and those that were in the academy in 2009, guys like Jamie George, Wil Fraser, Jackson Wray, Owen Farrell. It was also about the way they nurtured the talent - Brendan was the first to have the academy train with the first team full-time.”

The mid-season bonding trips have been talked about often, with Brad recalling one particular trip to Miami.  “It was bonkers, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he says. “We were split into groups of five with mobile RV trailers, and we started in Miami and then drove to spend a night in different places.

“Nobody knew how to operate an RV and the showers weren’t working, so you had 40 rugby blokes running with shower gel to a local shower block in middle of Miami South Beach. “We had barbecues in the Florida Keys, guys went fishing or jet-skiing, we went to a Miami Heat basketball game – just some unbelievable experiences.”

The objective wasn’t just about bonding. “What followed from this was the team looked at things a little differently, it became about wanting to create memories. 

“I think that was part of Brendan and Edward’s philosophy. Rugby is a very short-term thing, you don’t do it for the end goal, to win a trophy, you do it for the memories along the way. I think that idea struck a chord with the team . Once you put the end goal things aside, you start to enjoy the process  of getting there and you’re not going to define our season by what happens at the end.”

Ideas such as the WolfPack mentality were drip-fed. “It wasn’t like there was this huge PowerPoint presentation that said ‘we are going to be called the WolfPack’,” says Brad, “it was more gradual. And by the time the press got hold of it with pictures of wolves turning up for training, it was already firmly entrenched within the team.”

We skim through the years, Brad flicking through more than a few chapters of his Saracens life, stopping only briefly. “When I look at 2013, two successive weeks, losing a European final and then a Premiership final, I actually wonder if we’d have achieved what we’ve done since if we’d won even one of them,” he says. “That was a really difficult period, but I think the way we learnt to deal with those disappointments has helped us to where we are today.”

Highlighting the fact, he goes back to the final defeat against Northampton. “You’re beating Northampton and then in the 100th minute they score under poles,” he says. “To make matters worse, I was one of five or six players who had to meet up with the Northampton players for the England tour to New Zealand. You’re sitting on a long flight and have to listen to them talk about what commemorative watch or ring they’re going to have made.”

England is a mixed bag for Brad. He was called up by the Saxons in his first season, having played just 16 or 17 games, and received his first call-up to the senior squad the following November. A fractured finger against Exeter Chiefs put paid to a first cap, but he appeared on the senior tour to Australia the following summer to face the Maoris. Missing out on Martin Johnson’s Rugby World Cup squad in 2011, he’d make his debut in the 2012 Six Nations, the start of another rugby revolution, this time under Stuart Lancaster, who blooded eight players in his first game, including Brad and his team-mate Owen.

While he rues the quartet of narrowly missed Six Nations titles that went begging during his time with the squad, he still played a role in some incredible performances. “We showed in 2013 against the All Blacks that, when the team clicked, it was fantastic. I think the difference was probably the fact the consistency of performances wasn’t there.”

Brad’s last cap came in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, coming off injured in defeat against Australia. He, like many, hadn’t anticipated that would be the end. “The thing with sport is you can’t design it to suit you,” he says. “Everyone wants the fairy-tale. It’s the same with everything, if we’d ended after that 2010 season and not had the opportunity again, you’d be bitterly disappointed. Not winning one of those grand slams is hugely disappointing and it’s the same with the world cup being what it was…

“For everyone it was hugely disappointing,” he continues. “It’s something that squad spoke of for four or five seasons before, building to a home world cup. Maybe the expectation and the desire overshadowed the performance in terms of people not being able to achieve. How you rebound from these things is the true test of character.

“I think when you look at life, there are far more tough situations than that,” he says. “Being part of the Saracens group was the best thing, because the players who came back were greeted with open arms. Because of the way in which the team was pushing on, it allowed you to refocus and get involved in what they were trying to achieve.”

Considering he played his 26 Tests over a four-year period from 2012 to 2015, that he never added to his caps, despite playing in a dominant Saracens side is hard to believe. “Since then I’ve played possibly some of my best rugby,” he says. “I’d have loved another opportunity and you never close the door completely, but with rugby it’s one man’s opinion that decides your fate. 

“During that double-winning season with Saracens I thought I’d played as well as anyone and the years that followed I still think I’ve played some great rugby. 

“You can’t let a non-selection determine your enjoyment for the game, to signify what you are as a person. You learn to find personal drive, and I was about making Saracens as successful as they can be and ensuring it’s for a long time, by helping bring the younger players through.”

Talking of youth (or lack of), he laughs about the moment he recently played on the same team as someone born in 2000, but adds, “I’ve been drinking Tiki-Tonga for four years now, so I can go to 40 easily.”

With more than 250 games for his club , and now as captain of the team, his appetite for playing is still very much there. “When that goes,” he says, “I’ll decide enough is enough, but right now I’m thoroughly enjoying the ride.”

Words by: Alex Mead

Pictures by: Oli Hillyer-Riley

This extract was taken from issue 6 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.