World Rugby has announced a wholesale review of Regulation 8, which sets out the rules governing international selection. Current regulations stipulate a player with no right to selection through place of birth or a naturalised parent or grandparent is considered eligible after three years of consecutive residence.

The rule has allowed many current and former Wallabies to play for Australia and is used by Test coaches throughout the world to augment international squads, but has also drawn fire from Argentina, who were the only nation at last year's World Cup to field a team without a single foreign-born player.

World Rugby vice-chairman and former Argentina international Agustin Pichot and Pumas coach Daniel Hourcade have roundly condemned the three-year rule and called for the review to tighten restrictions.

But Pulver, who sits on World Rugby's Regulations committee and has returned this week from meetings in Argentina, said there was no appetite for change in Australia or much of the Southern Hemisphere.

"In Australia I'd be concerned that if we pushed three years out to something greater than that we'd be playing into the hands of rugby league and other codes who would be picking them up immediately and don't have international eligibility regulations to deal with," he said.

"In Australia the government lets you become a citizen in four years, so it would be a pretty bizarre scenario where you could be allowed by the government to be a citizen of the country but not allowed to play for their team.

"And to me a far bigger issue that World Rugby should be collectively dealing with is that the French and English clubs are raiding all of our countries of our players, which is having an incredibly disruptive impact on domestic competitions around the world."

The NRL recently relaxed its Test eligibility rules to allow a player to represent a tier two nation if they were not picked by one of the three major nations of Australia, New Zealand and England. The change means that Jarryd Hayne, for example, could play for Fiji, the country of his father's birth, if he is overlooked for Kangaroos duty, without it affecting future Kangaroos involvement.

In rugby a player cannot ever play for another nation once they are capped for a country in either 15s or sevens, or the "next senior 15-a-side national representative team", such as Australia A.

Pulver confirmed that all aspects of Regulation 8 were up for review, including whether a player from a tier two nation whose international career has finished with a tier one nation could be selected for the country of his birth.

"From my own personal perspective it is something that I do have an appetite to review," he said.

"I'm way short of making a commitment yet but clearly, once capped, you are locked forever and I do wonder whether some flexibility, particularly with some of the Pacific Island players who, after a career overseas, are returning and may have completed their use-by dates in some of those countries."