Cleaver's Games: March 13

Spies are all around us. Possibly.

Yesterday, on the way to observe a low-key warm-up hockey match between New Zealand and Malaysia (NZ won 1-0 in a bit of a yawner), a Herald on Sunday photographer and I were detained at security for 15 minutes while our credentials were checked.

And re-checked.

Once we had pledged our allegiance to the Commonwealth with a stirring rendition of Land of Hope and Glory we took a watching brief as Kevin Towns and his men went through their 11th-hour preparations.

Also watching - and this is the intriguing bit - was a good portion of the Australian men's hockey team, cunningly disguised in Australian team issue gear.

In what was supposedly a closed-door match you had to ask whether this was on the up and up.

A New Zealand official said he questioned the Australians on whether they thought their actions were appropriate mainly on the behest of the Malaysians who were, apparently, more upset than the NZers over the infiltration.

The answer he got was two-fold: the Australians believed practice matches have been open slather in terms of observation for six years now; and they had come to watch Canada anyway but had got their times wrong.

That, in terms of covert operations, would make them as effective a set of spies as the British men in Moscow who, in the full glare of a Russian observation camera, placed messages under a fake rock in a local park.

In any event, New Zealand, who meet Australia in their final pool match on March 22, weren't about to sell the family secrets.

Of their four penalty corners, the biggest potential for scoring in hockey, they ran the most basic of plays and generally looked a bit sloppy.

That's rat cunning for you.

In other breaking news, most of the New Zealand team move into the Village today, with a few drips and drabs expected tomorrow.

Many of the athletes will be surprised to learn the Village is right next to a high-security juvenile detention centre.

Local residents have complained that the Village has lowered the tone of the area.