Scotty Stevenson: Game-changing battle of the bucks

Jeremy Thrush has seen the writing on the wall of the All Black changing shed and is off to play his rugby for Gloucester. Picture / Getty Images

As English and French clubs wave their chequebooks, the big money is starting to look better than a black jersey

The escalating spat between high-profile French club owners Mourad Boudjellal of Toulon and Jacky Lorenzetti of Racing Metro may be proving lucrative for the players in their sights, but as the Top 14 euros and Premiership pounds fly in this, rugby's hypermarket year, the pressure continues to mount on the pulling power of the international game.

That seems a strange thing to say as we count down to the sport's biggest international event, the Rugby World Cup, but there is an undeniable force in French and English club rugby that seeks to fundamentally change the game's historical pecking order.

Not that it will be easy. For so long now the "power of the black jersey" has been the go-to line here when concerns of a player drain are raised.

And there is an undeniable truth to it - young New Zealand players still dream of national anthems and test matches, rather than brass bands and the Stade Mayol. But the latest players (and coaches) pinning their colours to a different mast should not be dismissed as the inevitable collateral damage of the World Cup cycle's necessity for ruthless selection.

Jeremy Thrush may have seen the writing on the wall of the All Black changing shed with the return of Luke Romano and the rise of Patrick Tuipolotu, and his decision to sign with Gloucester after a breakthrough international season shows impeccable timing and pragmatism.

But it also shows that money talks, and that guaranteed money is better than an uncertain international future.

The shame of it is that Thrush, a world under-19 player of the year, is leaving at a time when he had found a way to fulfil his long-promised potential.

Gloucester can see that, and they will also know that they will be buying a player whose sole focus will be on the club.

New Zealand's steadfast adherence to an international selection policy that necessitates players to be playing here remains its one key weapon in the battle to keep its best and brightest, but somewhat ironically, it also increases the attractiveness of New Zealand players to the northern clubs.

When international rugby is out of the equation, they can be certain they are buying players who can perform for the entire season.

And therein lies the rub. The club owners and presidents want big names, but they also want big minutes. New Zealand players can deliver those minutes. Big money can deliver those players.

Which brings us back to the Boudjellal-Lorenzetti show. What could once be dismissed as French flair (read: relentless narcissism) has now gained a foothold in Britain, where the English clubs find themselves in a somewhat fluid truce between the need to level the Premiership playing field via the salary cap (increased to 5 million, or $9.75 million, this season) and the desire to entice the world's best players through the free market.

Saracens boss Ed Griffiths claims to have the support of at least six Premiership clubs for his calls to scrap the cap so they can compete with the big-name French clubs on the world player market.

Last month, he said: "It would be a pity if the world's top players light up the World Cup on English soil, then leave to play club rugby in France."

What Griffiths means is this: if we are to host the buffet, at least let us partake in the feast.

While other Premiership clubs - including London's high-profile Harlequins - have come out strongly against the Saracens' proposal, the ambitious Griffiths represents a concerted push in English club rugby to retake the northern rugby narrative from the cashed-up clubs across the channel.

If Griffiths gets his way there is little doubt the cheques will be bigger and so will the names, and that will be the concern of unions throughout the Southern Hemisphere.

At the moment, that piece of fabric emblazoned with the silver fern represents more than a century of ambition and a formidable redoubt from which to defend the nation's best players against the paycheques of private clubs.

How far that fabric can stretch in the face of such a merciless and moneyed pursuit of players will be one of the big questions of the year.