News of Kurtley Beale's European departure coupled with reports that NRL clubs are lining up to pillage Australian rugby's best young talent, represents a sliding doors moment for Rugby Australia.
Beale has, across a 13-year professional career, stood out as the code's schoolboy-superstar turned superstar-for-real and, after serving the Waratahs and Wallabies with distinction, is deserving of a retirement-boosting salary to finish his career.
And there is now a new generation of brilliant young talent who are beginning to generate the same buzz that Beale did when he turned that scintillating schoolboy form, into a run to the 2008 Super Rugby final with the Waratahs.
He will depart for Paris and Racing 92 later this year having left Australian rugby supporters with many fond memories - and some less revered off-field misadventures - and he will still have the ability to represent the Wallabies, if his form warrants selection, through the Giteau Law.
Indications, however, are that new Wallabies coach Dave Rennie may have other plans.
But given Australian rugby's challenges amid the coronavirus pandemic, where the game is on the brink of insolvency and remains without a broadcast deal beyond 2020, Rugby Australia might be left with little choice but to abandon the Giteau Law altogether.
It is likely that some form of broadcast deal will be done, but whether that deal is enough to cover the game's current cost bases, player salaries in particular, will have serious ramifications for rugby union in Australia, not least of which is fielding a competitive Wallabies team.
As the Giteau Law stands, only players who have given a minimum of seven years' service to an Australian Super Rugby franchise or who have played 60+ Tests for the Wallabies are eligible for Test selection while based overseas.
But with reports circulating that many of Australia's leading Test players have already sounded out overseas clubs amid Rugby Australia's financial woes, the Giteau Law could be rendered near worthless if even a handful of walk-up Wallabies starters pack their bags and head offshore.
And we haven't even looked at some of Australia's rising talent, which were among the few positives the code had going for it in Australia before the COVID-19 shutdown.
Suddenly the likes of Harry Wilson, Noah Lolesio, Mark Nawaqanitawase and last year's breakout Wallabies star Jordan Petaia, who has suffered another frustrating long-term injury, could be picked off by NRL clubs who are waiting to pounce during rugby's time of crisis.
If Super Rugby clubs, Rugby Australia and the Fighting Fund - which should have been one of Raelene Castle's lasting legacies to the game - can no longer stump up the cash on payday, then players will have every right to walk.
And from a Wallabies perspective, it's better they grab their passport and sign for rugby clubs in either Britain, Europe or Japan, or potentially even New Zealand or the United States, rather than switching codes where they might be lost forever.
But that would of course require Rugby Australia to follow the lead of the South Africa Rugby Union in ditching its foreign eligibility clause altogether.
There are clearly far more urgent issues to be sorted at Rugby Australia over the coming weeks and months, and once the game has surety, firstly through a loan from $17m loan from World Rugby, and then a provincial competition structure either with or without SANZAAR, it may be that such a change in policy is not required.
But to lose the country's brightest and best young talent to rugby league, after the game had worked so hard to keep them in the first place, would be devastating.
Players who could have been a part of a potentially contending World Cup squad in 2027 - for which Australia is the only current bidder - could instead be plodding along through another NRL finals series or be sitting sidelined with their seasons already over.
The same goes for the annual disaster that has become Australia's Bledisloe Cup campaign.
There is no doubting that the Giteau Law served its purpose when introduced ahead of the 2015 World Cup, allowing the man who lends his name to the policy to return to the gold jersey alongside former Toulon teammate Drew Mitchell.
But only four years on, after the Wallabies had exited the World Cup in Japan, a discussion was already taking place about whether the Giteau Law's 60-cap threshold needed to be reduced; the world-class Samu Kerevi and Rory Arnold joining guys like Sean McMahon offshore, only providing the further justification.
Six months on and the global rugby market has been rocked off its axis by the coronavirus pandemic while Australian rugby is at its lowest ebb of the professional era.
Letting players like Kurtley Beale set sail overseas is manageable, but losing Australian rugby's best young talent to rugby league would be terminal.
And it may just be that dismantling the Giteau Law completely is the only way to avoid doing so.