The listening device was last night being examined by New South Wales Police forensic experts after it was found in the All Blacks’ team room in their Sydney hotel.
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A listening device was found at the All Blacks’ hotel in Sydney.
It was uncovered during a security sweep of the room on Monday but wasn’t reported to police until yesterday.
The report states 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 nearly undetectable”.
New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew said it was likely to have recorded a team meeting.
“The hotel immediately launched an investigation, we have informed the Australian Rugby Union, and jointly we have now made a decision to hand over the investigation to the Australian police”.
Ian Foster says teams such as the All Blacks are protective of their methods.
Tew said “if the device was working properly, and we don’t know that for sure, then they would have overhead that“, but “we don’t think it’s a catastrophic issue for the game tonight”.
“It is completely ludicrous“.
He was concerned it had come to light “on match day”.
“I simply don’t know the background but I’m clearly disappointed it gets out to the media on the day of a Bledisloe Cup match”.
Wherever the All Blacks stay, they are allocated a room where the players can gather and where private meetings about strategy, tactics and selection can take place.
Tew said: “We’ve been taking some reasonable security measures on advice for a long period of time because in the end some of the intellectual property around the team is obviously highly valuable and competitive”.
“It’s shocked everyone. We understand a few mixed emotions and it’s not great for the game but it’s happened and it’s out of our hands now and we’ll move forward”.
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Police investigating rugby’s spying scandal have turned on All Black bosses and their delay in reporting the discovery of a bug.
