Auckland: All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has accused Michael Cheika of hijacking the post-match press conference by airing his grievances over being portrayed as a clown in a local newspaper and lingering animosity over the bugging scandal in the wake of New Zealand's world record victory.
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Seeing red after his side's 37-10 loss at Eden Park, which involved a controversial no-try to Henry Speight, Cheika unloaded after the match about a cartoon of him dressed up as a clown with a red nose that appeared on the front page of the New Zealand Herald sport section on Saturday.
Asked by a New Zealand journalist whether he wanted to comment on the All Blacks' 18-game world record winning streak, Cheika politely declined.
"I don't really think they want my comment anyway. They don't," Cheika said. "They dressed us up as clowns today so they wouldn't want our comment. I don't think they respect our comment anyway so we won't make one.
"It was on the front page of the paper, bro. I think that's the same guy who reported the supposed bug isn't it, as well? Where'd that come from? That's the way it is; that's fine."
Wallabies captain Stephen Moore then intervened, saying he found the illustration disrespectful.
"For everyone that has pulled that on in the history of the Wallabies, I think that's pretty disrespectful," Moore said. "They've put our crest on it. That's our crest. It's no big deal, really, but at the end of the day you asked me about a comment... and I don't really think they want our comments."
When told later what Cheika had said, Hansen could not believe Cheika was even going down that path.
"The thing for me, this conference tonight seems to have been hijacked by something that's really got nothing to do with rugby, someone feeling a little aggrieved about things that you guys have done, making him be a clown," Hansen said. "It shouldn't get hijacked tonight, what happened tonight is a really good Test match.
"The paper I saw, he was dressed up like a clown. You've got to be bigger than that, don't you? I've been dressed up as a clown myself. You don't want to take it to heart otherwise it'll break you. We've got no control over what the media do."
National pride: New Zealand prime minister John Key congratulates All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. Photo: Getty Images
Cheika said he did not feel the relationship between the Wallabies and All Blacks was friendly at all as he went on another tangent, slamming the All Blacks' handling of the story about the alleged bug in their hotel room before the Sydney Bledisloe Test in August, which came out on the day of the game.
"The thing that got me a bit offside was the accusation that we tried to bug them, like really? Hello. Honestly?" Cheika said.
"I wouldn't even be smart enough to get that stuff organised. I'm too busy working on my own team. They hold onto it, drop it on the day of the game. They don't need to do that stuff. They're too good anyway. It's only because they want to do it to try and needle either me or us."
Hansen scoffed at the suggestion, saying: "All the pieces I've read about the bugging, I don't think anyone was accused, we didn't have any idea about it. We haven't accused anybody of the bugging. It's not an issue, the bugging thing. We found a bug and in the end, handed it over to police because that's the thing to do and left it with them. We don't know who did it and don't really care. We let it go."
