Who bugged the All Blacks?

The Herald reports:

The device – the sort used by law enforcement and spying agencies – had been planted in a chair in the hotel, where the team have been staying since Sunday, theHerald has learned.

The hotel has launched its own investigation.

The Herald understands the foam of the seat appeared to have been deliberately and carefully cut to make way for the device and then sewn or glued back together to be almost undetectable.

The Herald has been told that hiding the device was a highly skilled and meticulous act and whoever put it there would have needed a significant amount of time to have pulled off such an accomplished job.

Tew said this afternnoon he had spoken with Australian Rugby Union counterpart Bill Pulver who was “just as shocked as I was” at the bugging.

“We haven’t made any accusations of anybody, so there’s no room for denials,” he said when asked if Australia had denied involvement in the incident.

When the discovery of the bug was revealed by the Herald late this morning, Tew said in a statment that the New Zealand and Australian rugby unions had “jointly decided to hand over the investigation to the Australian police”.

“We are taking this issue very seriously, and given it will be a police matter, it would not be prudent to go into further details.”

This morning Pulver told the Herald the organisation was alerted to the discovery by Tew this morning.

I don’t think it would have been the Australian Rugby Union. They could hardly tell the players “Hey this is the All Black game plan – we bugged their meeting”. The players would be revolted if they were told.

It is possible the bug was planted a while ago and intended for someone else at the hotel.

The other possibility is that some sort of tabloid media organisation did it. It isn’t that far removed from phone hacking.

UPDATE: Well if it was the Wallabies it didn’t do them much good. The All Blacks slaughtered them 42-8. Sonny Bill cheekily tweeted during the game “So who bugged whose rooms then”. I suspect the bigger motivating factor was the talk from Wallabies coach Michael Cheika about how the ABs would do without McCaw and Carter. Just fine was the response.

NZ scored six tries, which is great against any team, but incredible against the Wallabies.