England’s changing room and training base will be swept for bugging devices ahead of their Rugby World Cup final against Australia to avoid any possibility of the Wallabies stealing their trade secrets before Saturday’s showpiece occasion at Telstra Stadium.
With the game receiving unprecedented attention in both countries following England’s semifinal win over France on Sunday, coach Clive Woodward yesterday insisted he did not believe his Australian counterpart Eddie Jones would resort to espionage. But he has asked for the rooms to be checked following claims that the British Lions were spied on during their 2001 tour of Australia.
Then the Australians appeared to crack the Lions’ line-out codes — the commands that determine which player is to receive the ball — and their dominance at the line-out was a factor in their eventually winning the series 2-1. Woodward is determined there will be no repeat. ”We have this little device, no bigger than a matchbox and Tony Biscombe, who is our IT man, goes round the hotel rooms and team rooms and makes sure there are no devices,” Woodward said.
”We could lose a world cup if we don’t pay attention to these things. You wouldn’t run any major business meeting without making sure everything in that room was secure. We’ll be taking our normal precautions but I can’t believe the Australians would do something untoward, because if they got caught it would be too big a story.”
The spying game is by no means new within top-level rugby, with South Africa recently accused of secretly taping Australia’s final training session on the eve of a Tri-Nations Test in Cape Town in July.
Woodward wants to avoid the fate of the Lions who, he says, took insufficient precautions when they were based, like England, in the beachside suburb of Manly on Sydney’s north shore.
”We won’t be doing a line-out session at Brookvale Oval with every man and his dog walking past which the Lions did two years ago,” said Woodward. ”But if another team is hell-bent on watching a training session, whether by using modern equipment or helicopters which we’ve had on this trip, there’s not a lot you can do about it.”
England are also taking genuine precautions to safeguard the security of their star player Jonny Wilkinson, who is being shadowed by discreet minders to ensure he is not mobbed by the growing army of rugby fans in Sydney this week.
”He’s a sought-after person and we look after him,” said Woodward. ”He’s a high-profile sportsman playing in a big tournament. People come up to him with 20 shirts to be signed and if he’s on his own it can get a little tense at times.”
If England win it will be the country’s first world championship in a team sport since 1966. With all flights to Australia sold out after a rush of late bookings supporters will have to make do with watching at home or in one of the 15 000 pubs and 1 000 rugby clubs expected to apply for a special licence to show the game, which kicks off at 9am on Saturday. – Guardian Unlimited