All Blacks under the hammer
Team reeling from Spygate, affair claims before test
A n unprecedented year of Transtasman rugby controversy comes to a head tonight as the All Blacks take on the Wallabies in a Bledisloe Cup grudge match in Sydney.
Last night the team gained some relief in the Spygate saga after their security consultant Adrian Gard was found not guilty of making up claims he found a bugging device at the team's Sydney hotel a year ago.
But the huge distraction of Aaron Smith’s toilet tryst at Christchurch Airport and its aftermath continues, as fresh revelations suggest All Black management knew the star halfback’s behaviour was not a one- off.
The Weekend Herald has learnt of fresh allegations about Smith’s actions — including claims that he had sex with another woman several weeks after he left the All Black team in South Africa in disgrace last October following the toilet incident.
The man’s partner claims a member of All Black management rang him a few months later asking if they could help. NZ Rugby has already announced this week that it i s reopening an investigation into the original sex scandal, after a claim by the woman involved that Smith offered her money to sign an affidavit which would have falsely claimed they did not have sex in the airport toilet.
The Weekend Herald has put questions about the latest allegations to NZR but they were not answered by deadline. Two men approached the Weekend
Herald independently to tell their stories about Smith’s alleged affairs with their partners.
One man said he was initially “disgusted” by Smith’s airport bathroom antics. He said those feelings grew stronger after he found out Smith had later allegedly hooked up with his former partner in a bar.
Upset, he said he phoned Smith to confront him. “He admitted it. He just said ‘ sorry’ and started to cry . . . and he pleaded with me not to go the media so I said ‘ tell me the truth’,” the man claimed.
A few months later the man claims he received a call from a member of All Black management asking “if they could help in any way with the situation”.
“I got the feeling they were trying to sweep things under the carpet. But I didn’t need their help.”
The Weekend Herald has spoken to another man who claimed his then wife had a six- month affair with Smith.
The New Zealand man said his wife met Smith on social media in 2015.
“He basically approached, they started following each other — then the odd cheeky message came from Smith.”
Before their split, the man’s wife and Smith were spotted together by mutual friends having breakfast while he was away overseas and then the affair allegedly started.
Teammates warned Smith to back off, the man claimed, and he alleged he also messaged Smith to stay away from his wife.
The man said he understands the lure of the All Black jersey for female
fans. “I’ve been involved in that scene as well.
“When you are a single bloke and you meet a single woman — that’s great but if you are single and go out with a married woman, that isn’t.”
The man said All Black management needed to “sort out the rugby culture”.
“If you are wearing an All Black jersey you are a role model — whether you like it or not. You are in the public eye and should behave.”
Meanwhile, the lawyer at the centre of the original sex scandal says she did not know he had a girlfriend at the time.
The woman, whom the Weekend Herald has decided not to name, also said she had a lot of sympathy for the star halfback’s partner, Teagan Voykovich, who stood by him after last year’s revelations.
“The media attacked both myself and Aaron and his partner, who I have a lot of sympathy for. She is the real victim,” she said.
The woman claimed that she had been seeing Smith a number of years before he met Voykovich.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen told a press conference this week the incident had already been dealt with and Smith would remain in the squad for tonight's Bledisloe test.
Relations between the All Blacks and the Wallabies have been at an alltime low since the Weekend Herald broke news of the bugging on the eve of last year’s test in Sydney, which led eventually to New South Wales police charging Gard with making a false statement to police.
Yesterday Downing Centre Local Court Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson ruled there was not enough evidence in the circumstantial case to convict Gard.
She found him guilty of a second charge of acting as a security consultant without the proper licence.
Gard, who has been acting as a security guard in Australia for the All Blacks for more than a decade, claimed to have found the listening device secreted in a chair in the team’s meeting room at the InterContinental Hotel on August 15 last year.
The All Blacks waited for five days before calling in the police because they had hoped not to get the media involved.
Although the All Blacks never accused Australia or the Wallabies of any wrongdoing, the incident soured relations.
The atmosphere grew even more testy after Australian coach Michael Cheika delivered a furious rant at a press conference over Weekend Herald cartoonist Rod Emmerson’s depiction of him as a clown on the morning of the Wallabies’ 37- 10 loss to the All Blacks at Eden Park last October.