This is not an argument you would necessarily hear in rugby’s corridors of power but it has a certain validity just the same. Who, would you say, does more to develop rugby in the Pacific islands, the club rugby of England and France or the International Rugby Board?

The question is unfair to the IRB. It has worked hard to create regular international competition for the islands in a manner that ensures that their own public can see them play and that their own unions can benefit from gate receipts. It has put development officers in place, helped to grow the infrastructure and certainly not sat these past four years on a pot of gold.

But half the players representing Fiji, Samoa and Tonga at this World Cup are plying their trade in Europe. Rob Andrew touched on the subject yesterday as England gathered their breath after defeating Samoa and South Africa regrouped after fending off the challenge of Tonga.

“We have all seen at this tournament where the game is going,” Andrew, the Rugby Football Union’s director of elite rugby, said. “In the so-called minnows of world rugby – and I’m not not saying Samoa are one of those – we have seen improvement across the board. A lot of these teams have a key proportion of their players employed as full-time professionals, particularly in Europe, particularly in England and France.”

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The accompanying table, showing where the South Sea islanders picked in their respective country’s original squad play, bears out Andrew’s claim and it does not include the likes of Epi Taione, the Tonga centre now playing in Japan but who spent the best part of ten years with Tynedale, Newcastle Falcons and Sale Sharks. Andrew’s argument, though, can be broadened to include all the Argentinians playing in the two countries, the Georgians and Romanians playing in France and, to a degree, the growing number of Scots and Italians in both.

Several Portugal players hope that, by their efforts here, they will attract employment as professionals. In Nantes on Saturday, Samoa’s entire back line (when Steve So’oialo replaced Junior Polu at scrum half) plays in the Guinness Premiership; of the Argentina side that beat France on the first day of the World Cup, only one plays in Buenos Aires.

“It has effected a change in the landscape,” Andrew said. “I’m not sure you can sit here and say that England should always expect to beat Samoa by 40 points – you have to respect the talent these sides have. Anyone who thinks we can walk into the Parc des Princes on Friday night against Tonga and come away with a comfortable victory has only to look at the video of the Tonga-South Africa game.”

That notion was emphasised by Inoke Afeaki. the experienced Tonga lock. “I think England will be nervous,” he said. “They should be. We have got more firepower, a good game plan and if they don’t turn up and play as best they can, they’ll be on the back foot.” Andrew emphasised that the Premiership and the World Cup have benefited. “It has been a sensational pool stage of the tournament,” he said, “and it will have been some competition by the end of it because it will only get better in the knockout stage. The England and French rugby economies are actually supporting not just their own countries but six or seven other international teams. These are market forces and you have to deal with market forces the best way you can.”

The same market forces, of course, are pulling a large number of top-flight New Zealanders and South Africans to Europe in the next three years, and those two unions are considering anxiously the effect on their domestic game; but Andrew’s task in developing young English talent is made no easier, either.

In his efforts to find agreement between the RFU and the Premiership clubs, still pending on matters of detail, Andrew has had to consider the effect of privately owned clubs, of European employment law and workers’ rights. Premiership officials consider the balance between home-produced and overseas talent at the moment – about 60 per cent to 40 per cent – to be sustainable, though they would be uneasy if the percentage became much closer.

“We have to find a solution which allows us in the English game to produce quality England-qualified players, provide them with an English product at club level which will develop them, and then find sufficient time to develop them into international players,” Andrew said. “We have been trying to get that model right for the last 12 years – it hasn’t ever been right, not even in 2003 when we won the World Cup.

“That was despite the system, not because of it. For long-term success we need a joined-up system and we’re working very hard to produce that with the Premiership. But we will not stop the array of talent coming into the English or French game when you look at the financial muscle in those countries.”

League of nations

There are 39 Pacific islanders based in England and France

— Fiji: 5 in England, 9 in France

— Samoa: 12 in England, 2 in France

— Tonga: 3 in England, 8 in France