French club Biarritz had watched from afar as the former All Black coached Canterbury to the ITM Cup in his first year in charge. As is the French rugby way, they swooped, sending in ex-France fullback and club president Serge Blanco with a truckload of euros to lure Robertson to Europe and help put the once-strong Top 14 outfit back on the map.

Robertson turned down Biarritz, though it must have killed him to do so. Why? After torturing himself about what an estimated $350,000 per season – five or six times what an ITM Cup coach would earn – could do for his young family, he told friends at the time: "New Zealand rugby have mapped out my pathway". Simple.

Last week, Robertson was announced head coach of the Crusaders.

In the same vein, Waratahs supporters should not get too attached to Daryl Gibson. "Dazza", as he is known around Sydney, will be similarly earmarked. He will earn his stripes here and abroad before being brought back into the fold by the New Zealand Rugby Union, results permitting, as an All Blacks assistant, perhaps, or Crusaders coach.

To pragmatic Australian ears it all sounds a bit structured, too command-and-control for a code that has always relied on natural ability to get the job done. But after another low point in the merry-go-round of boom and bust for the Wallabies and Australian Super Rugby sides, there is an unprecedented mood for change. To get it right and get it right once.

"There is nothing better than being in a crisis as a sport to galvanise people's thinking and consider what's really important," Waratahs chief executive Andrew Hore said.

"The sport is at a real crossroads. With the deal that the English signed last week there's some real key questions to be asked in the next two to three years if rugby is to survive and thrive in the southern hemisphere."

That would be the $350 million deal the RFU signed last week with its Premiership clubs, an eight-year agreement that will flood the game in England with cash – a salary cap worth up to $17 million per club – and usher in a golden era of rugby in the motherland. Because Eddie Jones needs a bigger stick with which to whack the Wallabies. 

Deep pockets: Ian Ritchie, chief executive of Rugby Football Union and Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Premiership Rugby. Photo: Getty Images

With 120-odd Australians already playing abroad in Europe and Japan, the RFU deal is a huge problem for Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. More players and coaches than ever before will head north to chase the money and there is no way the ARU, NZRU and SARU will be able to compete.

But Europe is only half the problem for Australia. Despite its own cash windfall via a $220 million broadcast agreement, the ARU will funnel most of that into propping up its five struggling Super Rugby sides. There are rumours the Brumbies, Australia's most successful team this season, are on track to post a $500,000 loss this financial year. The Force were forced into a friendly takeover, while traditional powerhouse Queensland finished an unimaginable second last in the Australasian conference.

On the balance sheet and on the field, Australia is in dire straits, which is why top level ARU management have been on several informal fact-finding missions across the ditch. Chief operating officer Rob Clarke and high performance general manager Ben Whitaker have both sat down with their NZRU counterparts and fleshed out the structure that has helped New Zealand build and maintain its dominance at provincial and Test level.

The fruits of that process will become clear over the next 12 months, but in the vein of the appointment of national skills coach and former All Blacks assistant Mick Byrne this week, expect to see a national coaching development manager and talent identification manager named, as well as growing national oversight of strength and conditioning.

​"The No.1 thing we can do and we can control is the quality of what we give players when we're here," Wallabies coach Michael Cheika said. "The quality of their physical and mental preparation, the quality of the tournament we're playing, and how we play the game. They're the things that we're really passionate about investing in right now, because we know they'll bear fruit for us further down the track."

It doesn't stop there. Whitaker, Clarke and ARU director Brett Robinson sat on the selection panel that appointed Nick Stiles head coach of the Reds this week. They will work with the Force to install an Australian there. Cheika already has Steven Larkham earmarked as his successor. After presiding over a system that saw coaches cut adrift after failing to perform, the ARU is now using words like "nurture", "support" and "develop".

"If you want to know who has the biggest impact on the success of a team it's the coaching set up as opposed to any one player," Queensland Rugby Union executive general manager Daniel Herbert said.

"If you look at what has usually happened in Australia, we give a guy the keys, pat him on the back and tell him we hope he does well, then walk away."

Richard Graham would attest to that, as would any number of recent Super Rugby coaches, including Damien Hill, Andy Friend, Michael Foley, Chris Hickey and – glaringly – Ewen McKenzie.

Whitaker, Clarke and Cheika believe if Australia is to survive the coming golden age of European rugby, the ARU must start developing its own Scott Robertsons and Daryl Gibsons. Just don't call it the Kiwi-fication of Australian rugby.

"Whilst they have a model that does give the NZRU a significant role, including the employment of [provincial] staff, they also made it very clear that at the end of the day, relationships are key, having that trust and respect," Whitaker said.

For the first time in a long time in the political world of Australian rugby, trust and respect are genuine features, which is just as well, according to Hore.

"There is a new breed of administrator too that don't see us as having to line up and bash the ARU publicly," he said. "They share the same problems as us, there's this massive threat of Europe, there's a lack of money in the game, we have a calendar that doesn't work. We need to start working together."