Suliasi Vunivalu may take Marika Koroibete's place on the Wallabies wing - rather than terrorise defenders alongside him - after coach Dave Rennie underlined the mission impossible of trying to compete financially with cashed-up overseas clubs.
Koroibete, the 2019 John Eales Medallist, has continued his imperious form for the Melbourne Rebels in Super Rugby AU this season and at 28 is at the peak of his powers.
But those eye-popping performances continue to inflate his value in Japan and Europe and offers have already come in for the NRL convert who is off contract with Rugby Australia at the end of the season.
"He's been fantastic, phenomenal," Rennie told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.
"There's been a couple of games he's played this year where he's been the best player on the field and you've only got to reflect back to the Bledisloe Cup game in Brisbane (last year). He was sensational that day. We'd love to keep him but that's the challenge we face."
The COVID-19 crunch has forced Australian players to take pay cuts, making an already difficult challenge to retain star players even more difficult.
"The Japan market is just going beserk," Rennie said.
"It's not just the elite but some fringe guys and guys who would be battling away in Super Rugby over here can earn three or four times what they would be paid.
"That's why, I guess, we've got to make the Wallaby jersey something the guys are desperate to get. So, whether we can afford to hang onto guys like Marika, that's the question. If anything, through COVID, there's less resource around that and as contracts are coming through, the guys are getting less, not more."
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While RA will give it their best shot, Rennie seemed resigned to losing Koroibete's services unless he is willing to take a significant pay cut.
Softening that potential blow is the arrival of Koroibete's former Melbourne Storm teammate and fellow Fiji product Vunivalu.
At 25, the Queensland Reds recruit has a couple of years to follow Koroibete's lead and master the 15-man game come the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
Vunivalu gave a glimpse of his immense potential and explosive athleticism with a match-winning play against the Western Force last weekend.
"He's getting better and better," Rennie said.
"He was a real handful last week. As you know, he's a really good athlete. He's learning, you can't play the ball on the ground when you're lying on the ground. He's been caught out a couple of times defending as you would in league, but he's a smart man and he's certainly making an impact."
Rennie also reiterated that there were no plans to radically rework the 'Giteau Law' and allow more overseas-based players to be eligible for Wallabies selection.
All Blacks great Andrew Mehrtens used his latest Sydney Morning Herald column to argue that the Koroibete case was proof that the law must go.
"Currently that law means we can bring a couple in," said Rennie, who will be able to pick lock Izack Rodda following his deal with the Force.
"As I've mentioned all the time, we're reluctant to bring wholesale numbers in. One, it won't be great for our competition and our depth here. Ideally, we want people to be able to compete apples with apples. A guy playing in France, it's hard to measure how well they're going, how well they're conditioned and so on. So I can't see any change in that."
Interestingly, Rennie revealed that the Wallabies brains trust was already selecting mock teams that could compete at the World Cup in France in two years' time.
The second-year Test coach will on Sunday pick a squad of 40 to convene for a three day camp on the Gold Coast next month.
He wasn't giving anything away on the selection front but confirmed there will be more fresh faces.
"We've tried to crystal ball gaze around who might play, so there'll be two or three or four guys playing who haven't played for us yet. We're certainly trying to get an understanding of who we think might be in the mix and then the idea would be to bring them in earlier and blood them over the next few years. In the end they've still got to earn it...
"You've got to look ahead. There's a Lions tour two years after that (World Cup), there's always big events coming up. But we've got an expectation to win now and so we've still got to pick a team to do that. So if it's 50-50 between a young fella and a guy we think is in decline, we'll pick the young fella. I think that's really important that we've got a good idea of the future."
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from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/rugby/marika-koroibete-suliasi-vunivalu-dave-rennie-australian-rugby-news-wallabies/82ce6c12-65bd-4c69-9cf3-b2573d321a2a
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