Sir Clive spied 2003 World Cup strategy

Sir Clive Woodward

England rugby coach Sir Clive Woodward hired ex-special forces men to thwart spying during the 2003 World Cup, and this elite team also spied on England's opponents, says a former member of New Zealand's SAS.

The revelation bolsters claims that the English have been spying on the All Blacks.

Coach Graham Henry made the allegations this week after two men with a camera were found in bushes at the Grasshoppers Rugby Club in London as the team's closed training session was beginning.

An England Rugby Football Union spokesman denied the claim, but the former Special Air Service soldier has told the Weekend Herald that England has been spying on its opponents since the 2003 World Cup.

He said the team hired by Sir Clive would sit one man in or outside the opposition's hotel.

When they departed, the man would follow them to their training ground and try to enter or get close enough to film the session.

The former SAS soldier knows two of the surveillance team members, whom he described as good operators with access to state-of-the-art equipment, including covert filming and bugging devices.

But some of the team's methods were surprisingly low-tech.

He said they would gain entry to opposition teams' hotels and, with a thin plastic ruler with sticky tape on one side, retrieve information sheets placed under players' doors by team management.

He said the men were contractors hired through British security firm Diligence LLC, a top-level security company founded by former members of the CIA and Britain's MI5 intelligence agency. The men were paid 500 a day.

Sir Clive was so pleased with their work he hired them again for this year's Lions tour of New Zealand, said the former soldier.

A four-man team arrived separately from the Lions' main tour party and secretly watched All Blacks training sessions.

In his recent book A Year in the Centre, Lions centre Brian O'Driscoll recounts that Ray, one of the team's regular security men, told him during the tour: "We've had another three or four security guys with us since the start of the week, except that they are undercover. They are so good, you won't even know they are here."

The Weekend Herald understands that former New Zealand SAS members learned about the Lions' spying plans and tipped off All Blacks management.

All Black spokesman Brian Finn said before the final test the All Blacks were aware of the Diligence team's technical capabilities.

Sir Clive told the Herald before the final test in Auckland he was not aware of Diligence, and was not spying on the All Blacks. But an article in Britain's Daily Telegraph on October 4, 2003 said Sir Clive had hired Diligence to help with team security leading up to the World Cup, and operatives were believed to have accompanied the team to Australia.

A November 18, 2003 article in the London Times also said Sir Clive was worried about security. It is widely believed a factor in the Lions' series loss to Australia in 2001 was that their lineout calls, among other things, had been cracked.

Sir Clive has said England regularly uses anti-bugging devices to ensure no one is listening to team meetings.

"Sometimes people don't understand the huge stakes we are playing for."

He has previously admitted using 36 cameras linked to a high-tech system of computer analysis to spy on the All Blacks when they played the Barbarians at Twickenham last year.