Wallaby 'spy' angers All Blacks
Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:11
Snap: The infamous 'spy' picture. (c) Getty/Gallo
The All Blacks on Wednesday slammed a photographer whose candid snap left secret tactics for their Tri-Nations/Bledisloe Cup double header with the Wallabies splashed across Australian newspapers.
Officials said the photographer had breached the team's trust after he pictured coach Graham Henry holding diagrams of defensive game-plans for Saturday's game.
Photographs of the fully legible manoeuvres with scribbled notes were printed in Melbourne's Age and national daily The Australian.
"At the end of the day you guys and photographers come to training and there are a few unwritten rules and the photographer has breached the trust," said assistant coach Steve Hansen.
"There's not too much we can do about it."
The gaffe comes before Saturday's crunch match, which could go a long way towards deciding the Tri-Nations title - after both teams went unbeaten in their opening games against South Africa.
Hansen admitted New Zealand would have to adapt their tactics after the revelation, but said it would not prove decisive in the match in Melbourne.
"The good thing about it [is] yesterday [Tuesday] was a defensive training day so we won't have to change our tactics too much," he said.
"There are a whole lot of things that are going to happen on Saturday and I don't think one photo is going to make too much difference."
Australia assistant coach Jim Williams claimed he would not consult the photo as the Wallabies attempt to end a seven-match losing streak against their main rivals.
"I wouldn't read too much into it myself and I wouldn't bother looking at it. It's just a picture of training," he said.
It is the third time in four years that New Zealand officials have been upset after secret tactics were exposed.
Ironically it's a Kiwi photographer, Scott Barbour, who is the man in the middle of the controversy after his long lens snapped the picture as Henry put his troops through their paces on Tuesday.
With Hansen sensationally accusing Channel 7 of helping Australian coach Robbie Deans spy on their 2008 trip to Brisbane, a Kiwi reporter on Wednesday asked where the Australian coaching staff was hiding.
"Robbie doesn't like to hide too much. He'd be right out in front there - on the grassy knoll I dare say," Williams said.
Hansen was also pilloried by former Wallabies assistant coach Scott Johnson, who previously teamed with him to coach Wales, in 2006 when the All Blacks used security guards to turn away onlookers from training sessions in Brisbane.
Johnson arrived at the next day's media conference in army-style camouflage gear with the words "paranoia is curable" stencilled into his shirt.
When Hansen coached Wales against NZ in Cardiff in late 2002 they had a hidden cameraman set up to film the All Blacks session after they were mysteriously forced to shift training venues to Sophia Gardens.
The switch was detailed in a recent book, 'Seeing Red' by Welsh video analyst Alun Carter, who also said Hansen employed a technician to tune into the short-wave radios used by French and Italian coaches.
The All Blacks have continued to be highly conscious of security with a South African cameraman working for a NZ television station removed from a training session before last year's Tri-Nations match in Durban.
AFP/AAP/NZPA
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