It’s becoming clearer with each passing day that the All Blacks are pulling further ahead of the field, the chasing pack powerless to stop them exercising their dominance over the rest of the rugby world.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and they don’t come more desperate than bugging the hotel meeting room of your upcoming opposition.

A ‘sophisticated bugging device’ was found in the All Blacks’ room ahead of Saturday’s test match against the Wallabies, with this below from Sport24:

The device was planted inside a chair and found during a routine sweep of the room…

The foam of the seat appeared to have been deliberately and carefully cut to make way for the surveillance device and then sewn or glued back together to be almost undetectable…

It was discovered after team management asked the security detail looking after them in Australia to sweep the room for bugs…

[New Zealand Rugby (NZR) chief executive Steve Tew said] “the hotel immediately launched an investigation, we have informed the Australian Rugby Union, and jointly we have now decided to hand over the investigation to the Australian police.

“We are taking this issue very seriously, and given it will be a police matter, it would not be prudent to go into further details.”

The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) have distanced themselves from the incident, saying they had nothing at all to do with it:

“Of course (the ARU is not involved). It is completely ludicrous. I just think it’s a ludicrous concept that there are listening devices being placed in team rooms. I don’t know how that could happen,” Pulver was quoted as saying.

“I’m utterly disappointed the story would break on match day and frankly, that’s all I’ve got to say. We are going to focus on a game of rugby that we’ve got tonight and we will deal with this matter after the rugby.”

It appears the bug was unable to aid the Ozzies in gaining any kind of edge, the All Blacks playing some sublime rugby on their way to a 42-8 victory.

Of course we joke, because it’s more likely that the bugs were actually planted by a different source. This below from the New Zealand Herald:

One theory is that a betting syndicate is behind the planting of the device – any classified information can provide advantages for those betting on matches, and World Rugby is particularly strict on match fixing, and “spot fixing”, whereby specific elements of the game are manipulated to provide a certain result.

Perhaps someone can bug the Bok meeting room, and we can know exactly what’s being said behind the scenes. Given our performances in Allister Coetzee’s first four matches in charge, it’s something along the lines of ‘play terribly for 65 minutes and then pull it out the bag’.

[sources:sport24&nzh]