I bumped into All Blacks legend John Hart at a recent New Zealand Warriors rugby league match and he floated an idea that could help the development of the game on both sides of the Tasman.

Hart attended a recent think-tank on the state of New Zealand rugby and one proposal was to expand the National Provincial Championship to include Australian sides.

While the thought of two arch-rivals working together may come as a surprise, it would be a great way to develop the game in both countries.

Despite another disappointing World Cup, New Zealand remains a rugby powerhouse. But it is concerned about the player drain to Europe during the past 18 months, which now totals 16 All Blacks.

Some of those players are irreplaceable, putting enormous strain on the Kiwis' development.

Australia has its own development issues, which are different to those of our Kiwi counterparts. While we haven't lost as many players overseas, we have three other football codes to compete against.

It's time to work together. Playing in a combined provincial tournament with New Zealand would generate more money. Long term, this would give New Zealand a better chance of keeping its players at home and provide Australia with a strong television product as rugby competes with rival codes.

There were attempts about 20 years ago to introduce Queensland into New Zealand's NPC, but the door was slammed shut. But with both countries having issues, there's a huge chance for an Australasian NPC to finally get off the ground.

In the early 2000s, the ARU had a poor working relationship with New Zealand. In recent years, the Gary Flowers-led administration worked hard to rectify that. The relationship is now fairly solid and there is a genuine chance to work cooperatively.

Other ideas have been tossed up in recent times. There was talk of the Super 14 expanding to two full rounds. But I think that's unlikely. We may expand the competition one day to include a Pacific Islander team and then have a top-eight finals format, which would add three or four weeks to the season. But that may still be a year or two away.

Presently we have the ridiculous situation, from an Australia rugby point of view, of the Western Force touring Ireland in August. Queensland are also looking to tour somewhere. Wouldn't it be better to have those players in the NPC?