Rugby: Steve Hansen defends decision to return to 'Spygate' hotel

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. Photo / Getty

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen, busy preparing for the first Bledisloe Cup test in Sydney a week on Saturday, has today defended the decision to base the team at the same hotel where last year's Spygate scandal unfolded and has insisted no extra security measures are necessary.

Speaking in Christchurch after announcing his 33-player squad for the Rugby Championship, Hansen also said he didn't know anything about the revelations today in a Sydney court hearing the case against security consultant Adrian Gard that some of the All Blacks' lineout calls leaked out in South Africa recently.

Speaking as a witness in the case against Gard - who has denied a charge of false misrepresentation leading to an investigation, and a man whom Hansen believes is innocent - Charles Carter, another security consultant, said extra precautions were taken in sweeping Sydney's Intercontinental hotel for bugs because of a previous experience.

"We were discussing a security breach in South Africa, someone from the police said 'we've got your lineout calls', so someone else has them, you're computer has been hacked," Carter said in court.

However, Hansen, increasingly agitated at the line of questioning at the squad announcement at Christchurch's Burnside Rugby Club denied all knowledge of the breach.

"I'm not sure where that's come from because I know nothing about it," he said. "To be honest, do you believe everything in the media?"

When the reporter replied: "Most things", Hansen said: "Most things, yeah me too - I just don't believe that because I've never heard that before."

Earlier, when Hansen was asked whether the team would use the same security firm one year after the listening device was found in a chair in a team room, he replied: "Yep."

Asked if he still felt Gard was innocent, he said: "Yep."

Asked about the timing of the court case a week out from the All Blacks arrival in Sydney, he said: "I've got no control over that, so it's another 'yep'."

Of staying in the same hotel, he said: "It's a good hotel.

"There are potential bugs in every hotel."

Extra security measures would not be needed, he said.

"No, because we had enough to find the bug in the first place, so we would we need any more?

"It's just business as usual."