Eddie Jones claims England training was spied on from apartment block ahead of New Zealand World Cup semi-final

Will Macpherson22 October 2019

Eddie Jones has claimed that a key training session in the build-up to ­England’s World Cup semi-final against New Zealand on Sunday was spied on.

England’s security staff saw the red light of a camera recording his team’s session today in Chiba from high up in a nearby apartment building.

Jones joked that he was spying on the All Blacks in response, before saying that he had not used such techniques since 2001 because they are redundant in modern rugby.

Before England lost by a point to the All Blacks at Twickenham last November — the first meeting between the teams for more than four years — Jones revealed that he had asked the players who had been on the Lions tour to New Zealand in 2017 to make notes on the experience of facing the world champions.

When asked if he would be ­digging those notes out, Jones said: “So you were the bloke up in the apartment block today filming. There was definitely someone in the block filming, but it might have been a Japanese fan.

England's players take part in a training session at the overlooked Arcs Urayasu Park on Tuesday
AFP via Getty Images

“I don’t care, mate. We have got ­someone there at [New Zealand ­training] now. Everyone knows what everyone does, so there are no surprises in world rugby any more. That’s the great thing about the game, you just have to be good enough on the day.”

England are staying this week at ­Disneyland in Tokyo, where New ­Zealand were based before they faced Australia and Japan in Tokyo last year, but are training at nearby Arcs Urayasu Park.

Jones added: “You just don’t need to do it [spy] 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.”

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The Australian said England’s staff knew from the beginning of the session that they were under surveillance but seemed unconcerned, despite normally only allowing people to watch training for short periods of time.

“We knew it from the start, it doesn’t change anything,” added Jones. “We love it. That’s part of the deal. That’s the fun of the World Cup.”

The players appeared less clued up. Prop Joe Marler said he was not aware of anyone filming the session. “I don’t know, I couldn’t see anyone,” he said. “It was too windy. I doubt he’d have got much anyway, it was tipping it down.”

Jones is hopeful that his Lions dossiers will be helpful, saying: “The coaching staff have looked at the notes and a number of the key principles that came out of that will be important this week.”

England captain Owen Farrell, one of those on the 2017 tour, said he hoped to be able to use the experience gleaned then. “We’ll see on Saturday,” he said. “The experience of playing down there was a big one for everyone involved, so I guess its exactly that — it’s experience. People want to use that and we’ll try to on Saturday.

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