Australia have unearthed next Will Skelton, but at 16 he has already left for France

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"It's the same with the NRL clubs. There was a guy called Sam Walker and we went pretty hard at him as a ball player. But then he got an offer of $400,000 (around £200,000) from the Sydney Roosters - if they want to go hard at a player we just get blown out of the water."

Rugby Australia asks World Rugby to look into 'poaching'

The case of Kite left a particularly sour taste after his father got involved and publicly lambasted Rugby Australia for failing to authorise his release. Currently a tighthead prop, La Rochelle already plan to convert him into a second row very much in the mould of Will Skelton. This drew a trenchant response from Daniel Herbert, the Rugby Australia chairman.

"It's something that we're talking to World Rugby about, because there's more than what's been reported as well that we're aware of, and our view is that France has the ability to produce its own players," Herbert said."They don't need to come and talk to our player agents to try and poach ours at a very young age. So there's going to be some discussions at World Rugby level around what is actually allowed to happen in that market.

"Because, you know, [France's] population of 70 million without the major competition [rugby league] that we have and doesn't need to go to other markets to try and poach players. So it's a live discussion with World Rugby at the moment."

Part of the reason that French clubs are casting their nets so wide is because of the JIFF regulation, which forces Top 14 clubs to field at least 15 'homegrown' players in their matchday squad. The loophole is that the definition of 'homegrown' extends to any player who has spent three seasons with a club's academy by the age of 23. Hence, New Zealand-born, Australian raised Emmanuel Meafou is a JIFF player for Toulouse as well as a French international.

Call for compensation

What Australia are calling for is either some kind of compensation mechanism because at the moment World Rugby's regulation 4.7 does not account for players on academy contracts.

"I think World Rugby reg 4.7 talks to some level of compensation for development but it is a bit of a relic of the past and it has not moved with the times since professionalism came in," Cordingley said "That's something that needs to be looked at from Australia's perspective as well as from the Pacific Islands in terms of how that talent is developed and supported.

"We invest a hell of a lot in our development, not just in terms of our academy but into our pathways programme. The cost of developing a player is not insignificant. We acknowledge we are going to be net exporters of talent but at the same time Australia needs to move towards a model where there is some recompense or at least recognition of talent development."

Green shoots

It is not all doom and gloom. Last year Australia Under-18s upset their New Zealand equivalents 38-31 in Hamilton for their first victory over Kiwi opposition since 2019. Of that 23-man squad, 20 have signed for Super Rugby teams.

Of the ones that got away, Lemoto looks set for France while full back Rex Bassingthwaighte has signed for the Roosters and winger Heamasi Makasini for the Wests Tigers in the NRL. In a strange way, many Australian observers were happy that Lemoto has gone to France and at least remained in union - and potentially still on the Wallabies' radar.

So ingrained is sport into the Australian social fabric, that they will always produce more athletes per capita than any European nation. That level of talent can only spread so far with 18 AFL (Aussie rules) and soon to be 20 NRL (league) franchises all armed with bigger budgets and greater profiles.

According to Cordingley, who won 23 caps for Australia as a scrum-half, the solution lies in "boxing cleverly" against the heavyweights by offering young players different and exciting opportunities such as the ability to play abroad.

"We acknowledge there's a battleground but it has always been that way," Cordingley said. "We are trying to create points of difference in our programme that aren't just financial while acknowledging the finances are important. We have got to find ways to be better. We can't use it as an excuse. We have got to be able to offer our players more opportunities to play and improve."