We're half expecting Pussy Galore to come walking down Landsdowne Road with a tranquiliser gun in hand and wearing a scrum cap after hearing this.
Odd as this might sound, The Guardian reports today on an explosive new book by former British military intelligence officer, Séan Hartnett - clearly not his real name - and his claims that he was employed by the Irish Rugby Football Union to sweep their head office for audio surveillance devices in the wake of the disastrous 2007 World Cup campaign.
Whilst the governing body has come out in response, labelling the former counter-terrorism specialist's notions as "fictionalised", Hartnett's story makes for an interesting read.
Having served in Northern Ireland, he insists to have been contacted by the rugby authorities after they had become increasingly concerned with how media were getting hold of material that seemingly had come from the most intimate sanctums of the Irish game.
Hartnett, by that point having opened his own private industrial espionage business in the Republic, was told to warn members of the IRFU board that he had a very particular set of skills that would help detect if they were using their mobile phones to record sensitive conversations during meetings.
His book, Client Confidential, also alludes to a cloak-and-dagger meeting with Irish coach Declan Kidney on his appointment to discuss the "dangers involving information security". But with a wink-wink and a nudge-nudge, Hartnett revealed that all was not what it seemed for the incoming head honcho.
Unofficially, it was to tell him that not all his enemies were outside the walls of the IRFU HQ.
Isn't that just wild stuff altogether?
Rumours that David Wallace demanded that he be referred to as "double-oh-open-side-flanker" have yet to be corroborated, unfortunately.
