Wynne Gray: High stakes for sporting spies

Graham Henry with his game plan yesterday. Photo / Getty Images

Sporting espionage is an increasing trade.

Those who discount it are living in lala land, have no interest in the topic or wear rose-tinted glasses all year round.

As sport has moved deeper into the commercial world the results-driven stakes have become even greater.

There are weighty sponsorship deals to protect and promotions to foster, with all roads leading to the glittering business and sporting prize at next year's World Cup.

There are also some unwritten rules those who cover the sport, and those who report on other codes, understand.

If you are invited into a private All Blacks training session or the Wallaby or Springbok runs, it is expected you will not bug their team talks, reveal secret tactics or film images of their moves.

It is a different issue if that information lobs into your lap from elsewhere.

So I have some sympathy for Graham Henry if those images of his notes, published either side of the Tasman yesterday, were parts of the All Black playbook for Saturday.

In another newspaper yesterday, the Bulldogs AFL side was incensed someone had hacked into the radio frequency being used between the coach's box and interchange bench and offered the taped audio for sale.

Those twin issues this week, underline the rising trade in sporting intelligence and why Henry and other international coaches are becoming increasingly twitchy about security.

Once the All Blacks invited a bloke they thought was Irish singer Andrew Strong into their dressing room. Suspicions about his credentials rose when he claimed a sore throat prevented him from singing before his bogus identity was revealed.

There have been other celebrated cases. Team manager Andrew Martin, a former SAS colonel, went on a search and eradicate mission in Wellington when he thought there was some covert surveillance in the bushland surrounding the training venue.

The All Blacks cancelled practice in Sydney in 2000 when former Wallaby Nathan Grey was caught taking copious notes at one session, and security caught a cameraman in camouflage gear on their 2005 grand slam tour.

Two years ago the All Blacks accused the Wallabies of spying in collusion with Channel 7 in Brisbane and last year they held a lockdown training in North Sydney with extra security guards.

Assistant coach Steve Hansen lamented that it was hard enough to win tests without the opposition knowing what the All Blacks were going to do.

Every top international side has a huge emphasis on analysis. They have screeds of info and footage on their plays and the tactics they believe the opposition will bring to the game.

Henry's photographed sheaf of papers may have been a ruse, a dummy playbook or the real deal. It does not matter. Nor does it need some photographer to pap it.

But it is a lesson the All Blacks will acknowledge, and they should be grateful it came well before next year's World Cup.