All Blacks culture takes a hit after sordid sex revelations and bugging drama

FOR more than a decade the All Blacks have been hailed as world leaders in sports culture, but events this week have shaken their brand.

New Zealand's famed culture is taking a bashing.

THEY are held up as the epitome of what a sporting team culture should be, lauded by rival teams and rival codes.

But the All Blacks find themselves in uncharted territory this week as accusations fly over cover-ups and misogyny, while they also deal with the fallout over the bug-gate case and a clear spelling crisis within their team ranks.

Whether it is enough to derail them from defeating the patchy Wallabies in the Bledisloe Cup opener on Saturday at ANZ Stadium remains to be seen.

But there’s no doubt their brand has taken a hit following the scandalous text messages from Aaron Smith that emerged this week.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen refused to take questions on the sex drama on Thursday after naming Smith to start in his team, despite one of the messages suggesting Hansen himself was involved in attempting to cover up the matter.

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“Obviously the incident happened last year, we dealt with it and we feel that we dealt with it decisively,” Hansen said.

New Zealand's famed culture is taking a bashing.

“There’s nothing more that I can add to that but if there is anything else that needs to be spoken about, it will come from the New Zealand Rugby Union themselves.”

Smith was caught having sex in a disabled toilet at Christchurch Airport last October with a woman who can now be revealed as Dunedin lawyer and boxer Bridget Morton.

On Wednesday night, Daily Mail Australia published several messages from Smith to Morton before and after their toilet tryst, revealing Smith’s regrettable spelling issues but more alarmingly that he tried to downplay the incident to management.

He also suggested that Morton should sign a “sawn afterdavided” (sworn affidavit) saying they did not have sex in the toilet and that his “coach” believes this will kill off media inquiries.

Aaron Smith was involved in a ‘toilet tryst’ with Bridget Morton last year.

Bridget Morton has spilled the beans on the infamous incident. Picture: Instagram

On Thursday night Morton told TVNZ’s Seven Sharp that Smith wanted to buy her silence.

“He said ‘Look, I really need this ... I feel bad asking but would it help if I compensated you financially?” she said.

Smith had written messages to Morton asking: “OK are you will to do a sawn afterdavided (sic) to say we didn’t have sex in there ...? Cause they claim there a video and can hear noise but u weren’t loud at all.

“So if u swear that we didn’t have sex then nothing may come out in media and will save me heaps Hun.

“My coach say if u do a afterdavid think the media will go away and won’t come up”.

Morton claims that since this episode she has been barred from training at a gym used by Smith’s Highlanders club, and bombarded with online abuse.

Hansen said Smith would not be distracted by this drama on Saturday.

“He is in a great head space in that he knows that he’s dealt with this issue and done the things that he needs to do around it and he’s ready to play,” Hansen said.

Meanwhile, Hansen is awaiting the verdict on Friday of All Blacks security man Adrian Gard, who has been accused of planting a listening device in their Sydney hotel last year and claiming he’d found it.

Wallabies coach Michael Cheika was left incensed at the insinuation he and his team were responsible for bugging the All Blacks and made it known to Hansen earlier this year at the official World Cup draw in Japan.

All Blacks security consultant Adrian Gard (C) leaves a Sydney court.

“We had a chat in Japan and I made it clear to him that we didn’t highlight them,” Hansen said.

“I said to him there are only x amount of people who would take that opportunity [to plant a bug] and I said [to Cheika] ‘Whether we like it or not, if you’d found a bug in your team room, we would be one of those [suspects]. But we certainly haven’t named them as that, and we never will because we don’t know who put it there.

“I don’t know where they feel the inference was because we certainly haven’t blamed them, we don’t know who put it there and we said at the time and that hasn’t changed.

“I can’t help how they feel.”

Originally published as All Blacks culture takes a hit after sordid sex revelations and bugging drama