Rugby Australia has confirmed that the Giteau Law is effectively "redundant", while the governing body has also spoken with global start-up competition R360 and is wary of the threat it might pose to the game Down Under.
RA chief executive Phil Waugh and director of performance Peter Horne fronted Australian media on Sunday afternoon, just under 24 hours on from the Wallabies' resounding 22-12 victory in the third Test with the British and Irish Lions.
While the series had been lost a week earlier, Australia's performances both in Melbourne and Sydney left the RA duo bullish about what was to come in 2025, as coach Joe Schmidt now shifts his attention to a two-Test tour of South Africa to start the Rugby Championship.
And it appears as though damaging lock Will Skelton may be available for at least one of those games, before he heads back to France to begin preparations for La Rochelle's Top 14 season.
Skelton looms as a key figure in the Wallabies' run to a home World Cup, while players like Tom Hooper and Langi Gleeson, who are preparing to start stints overseas later this year, will also remain available to Schmidt, after Horne confirmed that the Giteau Law, first created in 2015 ahead of the World Cup, was effectively null and void.
"I think we've been pretty open. Joe's got no impediment to select whoever he wants. That's always been the case," Horne said via video call on Sunday afternoon. "If he wants to select someone he's entitled to; the Giteau Law, that's kind of redundant. The reality is, if he wants to pick Josh Kemeny from Northampton, that's his call. But we've also made a choice that we select domestically, because if the player's equal or of equal calibre, it's important that we invest in our premier competition in Australia.
"And then there's an opportunity to go and develop. We've selected, I think, three overseas-based players in the last 12 months, from Samu Kerevi, to Marika Koroibete to Will. And look, there's no impediment for Joe to select abroad.
"It hasn't been from the start. The board have been very supportive. But I think what we've been able to do is actually start to grow and develop a base of players in Australia that are actually able to compete, and it's been really positive.
"And we'll continue to invest in domestic-based players and invest in pathways to create more talent that's going to come through into the back of Super [Rugby] and create more pressure and internal competition in those squads as well. That's vitally important.
"Joe talks about internal competition in the Wallabies. We've just got to create more and more depth over time so that we can consistently perform."
While it appears that veteran backs Kerevi and Koroibete will be unlikely to figure for the Wallabies again, given Australia's improving depth in the midfield and outside backs, the difference Skelton made in the second and third Tests was undeniable.
Hooper, meanwhile, was man-of-the-match in Sydney and Schmidt had already declared his situation differed from the typical overseas stint given the back-rower's deal with Exeter was for one season only and that he was keen to return to Australia to continue his career thereafter.
Meanwhile, the presence of R360 league continues to bubble away in the background, with South Sydney NRL coach Wayne Bennett the latest figure to warn of its risk to rugby league. The start-up league has already been strongly linked with NRL players Ryan Papenhuyzen and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and is believed to have commitments from over 100 rugby and rugby league players to date.
World Rugby boss Alan Gilpin last week declared the game's global stewards were open to dialogue with R360 bosses, that includes former England Test centre Mike Tindall, who was sighted at State of Origin deep in Queensland camp before he was reported to have met Papenhuyzen in Melbourne ahead of the second Lions Test.
It appears then that R360 is being treated with more wariness than complete disregard, as was given to the failed World 12s concept, and RA hasn't sat on its hands in regards to it either.
"At this stage we've had conversations with R360. I think a lot of people have had conversations with R360 and we haven't got a huge amount of detail," Waugh said. "We understand that players are talking to R360, some have engaged and signed with R360.
"So we've got a fairly open mind to what that looks like, but it's very difficult without having all the detailed information and what the modelling looks like... we certainly don't have our heads in the sand on it. We're across it.
"And obviously, World Rugby and national unions are talking about it, but I guess it's just around how much transfer of information there is at the moment to have a very solid position on it."
Horne, who has a brief to shore up Australia's player base and lead contract negotiations, said RA had been on the front foot in securing its talent for the longer term.
"We've been really cognisant around securing our players for the long play, 38 players have been secured over the last 12 months.
"Some have got contracts through to '28. And we're really mindful of making sure that we've got a long play and we invest in our players for the long term. I think that's important that we make sure that our players are playing in our competition consistently."