Listening device debate still major bugbear for Cheika

MICHAEL Cheika confronted All Blacks coach Steve Hansen last year and told him they’d “crossed the line” by insinuating he had bugged them in Sydney.

The Wallabies coach opened up on the bitter relations between Australia and New Zealand as the bugging case is set to be heard in court today and the two sides prepare to do battle on the field once again on August 19.

Cheika said that he was contacted by ARU chief Bill Pulver on the morning of last year’s Sydney Bledisloe to inform him police were launching an investigation into alleged bugging of the All Blacks’ team room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Double Bay.

After lengthy investigations by NSW detectives, the Wallabies were cleared of all wrongdoing and the All Blacks’ own security boss Adrian Gard was charged with public mischief – the allegation being that Gard planted a listening device in the room himself and then

“found” it.

He will defend the charge today. The extraordinary scandal plunged trans-Tasman relations to an all-time low.

“How I found about it was on that Saturday morning when the CEO rang me, he’d obviously had a call from the CEO on the other side (NZRU boss Steve Tew),” Cheika said.

“I want to play the game as hard as it can be, slugging it out, the physicality of the game, even sledging sometimes if it has to be, or the mindgames.

“But I reckon that bringing in police and all that business, and making a clear inference, is crossing the line.

“I said that before and I’ve said it to the New Zealand coach personally, I feel it’s crossing the line.”

Asked what Hansen’s response was to his confrontation. Cheika replied: “That’s a private conversation.”

But Cheika did not deny that relations remain frosty.