All Blacks erect 4m fence to shut out prying eyes

The fence that has been erected at the All Blacks' team training pitch. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The All Blacks have had a huge security fence erected around part of their training pitch after discovering on arrival that guests from their hotel's restaurant could watch every move.

The team had two "private" training sessions which were effectively open to guests at the Lensbury club, their hotel in Teddington, south west London, before Rugby World Cup organisers remedied the situation.

The temporary fence, about 4m high and which surrounds a smaller one, was the organisers' idea, said All Blacks manager Darren Shand.

"The venue requirements for all teams are clear - everyone gets the same [ability to train in private]," he said.

"When we came here on the first day with people from England Rugby, straight away we knew it was inadequate. It [is now] at a level that has always been perceived to be about right.

"It's just how World Cups are. Every team gets a guaranteed private training base so they can get on and do their work and they feel they can do it in relative privacy.

"We had representatives here on the first day and we all looked at it and ... [guests] sitting at the restaurant and watching training - we agreed it wasn't the intention of the agreement. They were really quickly on to it to find a solution and it was their solution, not ours."

The All Blacks are enjoying being at a self-contained hotel and training base. It means there is no need to sit on a bus to get to training in what is invariably busy traffic, but it comes with its own challenges; in other words, other paying guests.

To that end, New Zealand Rugby has booked out all the bedrooms facing the training pitch so guests or, potentially, spies, cannot get an insight as to what the defending champions are up to.

Shand, who travelled to the United Kingdom with coach Steve Hansen to view accommodation and training bases in 2013, and returned again last year, is happy with the level of security and risk that the All Blacks are exposed to.