Eddie Jones believes England were spied on in their Tuesday training session ahead of their Rugby World Cup semi-final against New Zealand.
The England head coach unusually put himself up for media duties at the start of the week in an effort to ramp up the pressure on the All Blacks, and claimed that they spotted someone watching their training session in Chiba.
“There was definitely someone in the apartment block filming but it might have been a Japanese fan,” Jones said. “I don’t care mate. We have got someone there [watching New Zealand training] now.
“We knew it from the start, but it doesn’t change anything, we love it.”
Pushed on whether he believed it was a member of the All Blacks staff watching, Jones answered: “Possibly, but that’s part of the deal. That’s the fun of the World Cup.
“I haven’t done it since 2001. I used to do it, but you just don’t need to do it any more. You can see everything, you can watch everyone’s training on YouTube. There’s no value in doing that sort of thing, absolutely zero.”
Sat alongside assistant coach John Mitchell, the former All Blacks boss who he faced off against in the 2003 semi-finals while in charge of the Wallabies, Jones admitted it would be no surprise if the unwelcome training attendee did transpire to be someone from the All Blacks camp.
“I’ve got no idea mate but I think Mitch used to be one of them,” he joked. “On snapchat he’s got 15 different disguises!
“Everyone knows what everyone does and there are no surprises in world rugby anymore. That’s the great thing about the game, you just have to be good enough on the day.”
England do employ two security guards to keep an eye out on potential spies at training, and with Jones set to run his main training session on Wednesday afternoon, staff will be on red alert for any unwelcome visitors at their training base.
England prop Joe Marler however was not so clued up on the incident, adding: “I don’t know, I couldn’t see anyone. It was too windy. I doubt he’d have got much anyway, it was tipping it down.”
