New South Wales Police "are still exploring a number of avenues as to who planted a listening device in the All Blacks team hotel in Sydney last month" but have not ruled out the possibility it was "the work of someone from within the New Zealand camp," according to Tom Decent of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. And if that "turned out to be the case," police said that they would "absolutely" look at "pursuing the matter with criminal charges given the amount of attention the investigation requires." A police source said that "they have not ruled anything out at this stage," saying "a lot of people are going to be spoken to," and they will treat every possibility, "no matter how far-fetched it might sound, seriously." New information has come to light, "with police revealing the device is not as sophisticated as first reported." Initial reports suggested the listening device "was of high-quality, but police say a thorough examination of the device has proved it to be far from that" (SMH, 9/6). STUFF reported New Zealand Rugby Union CEO Steve Tew "would be surprised" if Australian police were implying a listening device found in the All Blacks' Sydney hotel could have been "planted by someone in the NZ camp." Tew on Tuesday said that he had been "surprised to read new details of the inquiry." He did not know when its completion was likely. Tew: "I have seen the story. ... Obviously we'd be very surprised if there was any implication that we'd done it ourselves, but we'll let the New South Wales Police go through their job." All Blacks assistant coach Ian Foster added, "My understanding is that it's a police enquiry, I haven't heard that it's finalized, so I'm not sure I can really say too much about that. But if they consider it coming out of this camp it's a little bit surprising" (STUFF, 9/6).
