Rugby: Tension running high between All Blacks and Wallabies

Australia coach Michael Cheika looks on with Grant Fox and Steve Hansen in the background. Photo / Getty

Bitterness, anger, resentment and suspicion continue to define the current state of the relationship between the All Blacks and Wallabies, with it emerging today that Australian coach Michael Cheika confronted Steve Hansen over the so-called Spygate scandal earlier this year.

Tension has been running high between the two camps since the All Blacks found a listening device planted in the team room of their Sydney hotel ahead of last year's opening Bledisloe Cup clash.

The discovery sparked a police investigation which led to the All Blacks' security contractor, Adrian Gard, being charged with public mischief. A verdict in the case is expected before Saturday's test and regardless of the outcome, there is going to be a further heavy impact on the relationship between the two nations.

Since the Herald broke the story almost exactly a year ago, the Australian Rugby Union has made it clear that they feel the Wallabies were implicated by New Zealand as the most likely guilty party.

The Australians have used the timing of the story breaking - on the day of the first Bledisloe test - as their justification to cast themselves as the accused.

It's a stance that has infuriated the New Zealand Rugby Union who have been careful in all of their public comments to not make allegations of blame or insinuate or speculate who might have planted the device.

But following the Wallabies 37-12 defeat at Eden Park last year - their fourth consecutive loss to the All Blacks - Cheika launched into an extraordinary tirade.

"I would say they caught me a bit offside with the accusation that we tried to bug them," said Cheika when he was asked whether his and the Wallabies' relationship had turned septic with the All Blacks.

"Really? Hello? Honestly? They had that the whole week..? That showed a lack of respect. I wouldn't be smart enough to get that sort of stuff organised. I am too busy working on my own thing."

The sense of injustice and resentment simmering within the Wallaby camp didn't reside that night at Eden Park and Hansen confirmed that Cheika sought him out in May when the two men were in Tokyo to see the draw being made for the 2019 World Cup.

"I don't know if he confronted me," said Hansen. "We had a chat in Japan and I made it clear to him that we didn't highlight [the Wallabies as a guilty party]. I said to him there are only x amount of people who would take that opportunity [to plant a bug] and whether we would like it or not, if you [Cheika] found a bug in your [Wallabies] team room, we [All Blacks] would be one of those. So we haven't named them as that and we never will because we don't know who put it there.

"I don't know where they feel the inference was because we haven't said it. We don't know who put it there and we said at the time and that hasn't changed. We can't help how they feel."

An already difficult and tense relationship between the two sides now sits on the cusp of yet more ill-will and bad blood developing, depending on the verdict in the Gard case.

A guilty verdict will incense the All Blacks while exoneration will effectively leave the mystery unsolved and the Australians thinking the cloud of suspicion they believe is hovering for them, lingering for longer.

Hansen said that he was keeping an eye on the ongoing Gard case. "Obviously we are watching with interest. He is a good man and we feel for him."