Wallabies warned over spy tactics

The All Blacks claim that last season they caught an Australian player, Nathan Grey, taking notes at their training ground during the run- up to a Test in Sydney. Viljoen, ?seething? at the filming incident, said: ?What happened last week was quite an issue for us. It is sad for the sport.?

An unconfirmed report in Australia after the Lions tour indicated that the Wallabies got an insight into the tourists? strategy by filming their set-piece work on the Wednesday before the Test ? a day when torrential rain forced the Lions to abandon their waterlogged base in Manly and head out to the New South Wales training ground five miles away.

The report stated: ?Naturally, news of their arrival did not take long to reach the Wallaby camp and immediately the New South Wales Waratah management were summoned to do some undercover home video work from behind the curtains in the rooms next to the ground.

?Within one hour the Wallabies knew which Lions were playing, all their tap moves and every line-out variation they had. Nice work.?

Despite closing sessions to the public, the Lions had barely been in Australia a week when they were making a formal complaint about spies. When Alex Evans, a senior member of the Wallabies? technical team, was spotted at one session, the Lions stopped training and asked him to leave.

After that they were constantly scouring training grounds for spies. Lions coach Graham Henry said: ?We were very conscious of the fact that this sort of thing does go on in international rugby. I don?t think the Australians do it on their own.

?It?s happening more often. Winning is so important that people will go to all sorts of lengths to gain an advantage.

?I think everybody has been at it. If you go to the right training sessions, you can pick up the opposition game-plan quite extensively.?

Henry denies the Australians gathered any damaging information from the sessions they reportedly filmed through a peephole in the curtains.

?I don?t think we did anything that afternoon which would have given them any leads. We trained on an open park that day which made it absolutely impossible to have a closed session.

?But there was nothing to be divulged that day about what we were planning to do in the Test because our hard work had been done earlier.?

The Wallabies were adamant last night that they would never stoop as low as to send a spy into the enemy camp. Team spokesman Strath Gordon said: ?We can categorically state that the Wallaby team management has never authorised nor approved this sort of covert activity. We just don?t do that.

?Suddenly this whole spy scandal stuff is being regurgitated. It?s fanciful but it has never been a Wallaby tactic.

?There are two points at issue here: One, did the Australians carry out espionage on the South African team? The answer is a categoric no. Two, if you are that sensitive about people observing your team training, close your training sessions.?

And the secret film of the Lions in training?

?This is the first I?ve heard of it,? said Gordon. ?It would be foolish to suggest that all international teams do not take the opportunity to observe the opposition training. I?ve been to New Zealand too many times not to know that.?