Chris Rattue: Spy v spy and we're all in the dark

The Lions tour may be a supreme rugby irony. Because the coaches know more and more in the computer age, we are seeing less.

Furthermore, we're not sure whether what we do see is the real deal or a dodgy deal when the name of the game from both sides is keeping as much as possible under wraps before the tests. There may even have been a few dummies thrown already.

This is not a new strategy, but is reaching new levels - like the subterfuge you would find in a John Le Carre novel. It can even feel like a phoney war.

Where do we find all of this trickery. At the most obvious level, the All Blacks indulged in touch football against Fiji with a mix 'n' match selection. The Lions, in turn, will not put out a full test side before the first international.

Combination, momentum and even match hardness are being sacrificed in the name of disinformation - while the computer boffins embark on a secretive campaign of inventory and invention.

While the Lions have been far from stunning, they are hindered by the secrecy campaign and maybe even confusion caused by playing in handcuffs.

Just how much more the Lions have to give is debatable. Knowing their own limitations, they may be keeping every potential weapon of mass destruction away from the inspectors. Then again, like Iraq, they could have nothing in reserve.

Their cloak-and-dagger approach extended to assistant coach Ian McGeechan suggesting he moved Jonny Wilkinson to second five-eighths against Wellington as a gift of alternative thinking to Sir Clive Woodward.

Subterfuge for sure, but it's hard to believe it was done without spymaster Woodward's involvement.

Intelligence and counter-intelligence is all the rage.

Maybe the most famous rugby spy story concerned the 2003 test between Australia and South Africa at Cape Town.

After De Wet Barry cut off a series of Wallaby moves, it was claimed the South Africans re-designed their game plan after videotaping the Wallabies' final training at Newlands.

One session

A great story but you had to query how much information might be gleaned from one session and whether such an effective response could be put together at short notice.

South African rugby whistleblower Mark Keohane later revealed that coach Rudolf Straeuli had indeed organised secret videotaping from a Newlands corporate box.

But the cameraman, Dale McDermott (who revealed the controversial Springbok World Cup camp and committed suicide this year), felt guilty and stopped filming 10 minutes into the warm-ups. The players didn't even know about the taping attempt.

Likewise, Woodward's operations are hindered because he is without some of his spy-toys - like the 36-camera system at Twickenham which tracks players' every move.

Woodward used this to record the All Blacks playing the Barbarians last year. The All Blacks claimed the video system had no bearing on team selection yet it is worth noting they will field a vastly different lineup against the Lions.

The Twickenham video represents an amazing turnaround in rugby thinking. Until the late 1960s, the English Rugby Union objected to things regarded as against the spirit of the game.

When change came, it was quaint at first.

Their coach, former international forward Don White, wrote - yes wrote - to the All Blacks supremo Fred Allen for his theories on rucking techniques as England prepared to face the Springboks.

This counted for advanced thinking at the time - before videos and computers entered the picture.

Videos, videos, videos. Longtime television rugby producer Graham Veitch told me this week that second and third division NPC sides continually request piles of match videos from his company for analysis.

And the coaches and players of the 1960s could hardly have envisaged the situation which occurred at North Harbour Stadium, where the Lions were stopped from taking wide-angled video of the Fiji test because they were breaching broadcasting rights.

Graham Henry was unconcerned that his team was being filmed, which reinforced the notion that the All Black tactics that night were unconnected with their Lions game plan. Then again, maybe Henry's nonchalance was a rearguard action to throw Sir Clive off the scent.

As in the best of spy novels, this plot continues to thicken.