An increasingly ugly pay dispute is threatening to unravel Australian rugby a year from a home World Cup, as the Wallabies prepare for four Nations Championship matches crucial for reversing fortunes smashed by two heavy Bledisloe Cup defeats.

The Wallabies meet England at Allianz Stadium – the sponsor’s name for Twickenham, not its namesake in Sydney – on Sunday afternoon local time (early Monday AEDT). The fixture is critical as the team looks to revive the momentum developed early under new coach Les Kiss before Australia were given a reality check against New Zealand last month.

Those two matches – when they conceded 93 points with alarmingly little resistance – were the last under the previous collective bargaining agreement, struck in 2023. The negotiations for a new one are not going well.

The Wallabies’ first press conference on tour in the UK this week should have been a celebration of the recall of Kurtley Beale, and the return of assistant coach Jonny Fisher to his homeland. Instead, questions about the bargaining process prompted an awkward exchange, with both men unable or unwilling to diagnose what has quickly become a sore.

Rugby Australia (RA) took the unusual step of sending a letter directly to players this week outlining their offer, bypassing the Rugby Union Players’ Association (Rupa) which is responsible for negotiations. A response from Rupa president Tom Robertson expressed disappointment about RA taking the step “particularly while the Wallabies are on tour”. RA chair Daniel Herbert returned with his own statement saying Rupa’s counter-proposals “threaten the future of the game in Australia”.

Bargaining in sport is rarely cordial, but this has come to resemble punch. The immediate tension surrounds RA’s uncomfortable financial situation. Only two years removed from a $37m annual deficit, the governing body hopes to squirrel away much of the near-$100m fee paid by World Rugby for hosting next year’s men’s World Cup to make up for coming leaner years. Although last year’s British & Irish Lions matches allowed the governing body to clear debts, those tours come around just once every 12 years. Officials are well aware they will not see another home men’s World Cup in twice that time, or longer.

There is clearly a need for players to be fairly compensated. Male rugby union players in Australia are already paid less than those in rugby league. The NRL’s $5.3bn, seven-year broadcast deal with Channel Nine and Kayo struck this year is likely to increase player salaries in a rival code that can already offer professional contracts greater in number and average value to promising young footballers.

Although the Wallaroos will host the women’s World Cup in 2029, they are well off the standards set by the likes of England, New Zealand and Canada. This season’s NRLW successes of former sevens players Teagan Levi and Sariah Paki will increase the appetite of league recruiters for union players.

RA’s current offer increases payments to men’s and women’s players, including an expansion of the Wallaroos’ full-time program, but Robertson argued there are still “basic protections” sought, including “proper career-ending injury cover and fair conditions across the men’s and women’s game”. Herbert countered by saying the players have “some of the best working conditions in international rugby”.

As the terms are being haggled over, rugby union faces broader challenges in the region. Rivals in rugby league have been given generous Australian government funding to develop talent in the Pacific, and New Zealand Rugby faces tens of millions of dollars of losses in coming years. With South Africa aligning itself more closely with the northern hemisphere nations and the All Blacks, Australian rugby must save itself.

The negotiations could not come at a more important time. The coming 12 months is an opportunity for rugby union and its players to return the code to the lofty status it enjoyed in 2003 when Australia last hosted the World Cup. The Wallabies realistically have little chance of winning the trophy, given they are already on the outer of the group of contenders. But high profile World Cup failures resembling the thrashings handed to them by the All Blacks last month would not only spurn this generational opportunity, it would send the sport backwards. To have the Wallabies and Rugby Australia united in a year that so much is at stake, and when every ounce of performance must be squeezed from this still-improving playing group, is a basic necessity.

With a lapsed agreement, players are able to pursue industrial action, including media boycotts and protests. The most prominent recent example of a similar dispute in Australian sport was in 2023 rugby league players taped over the logo of the NRL on their shirts and refused to perform their ordinary press obligations. Back then, the NRL used its media partners to put forward its claims. The Australian broadcast of this weekend’s Wallabies match – and three more later this month – will be instructive about just how deep the ill-feeling goes.

Both Robertson and Herbert expressed some positivity in their statements this week that a solution could be found. The match against England is therefore timely: a reminder of the common enemy.