Given Australians’ fondness for abbreviating anything of more than two syllables, it stands to reason that they struggle with a man whose surname has seven. And so Mark Nawaqanitawase finds himself, as rugby’s latest code-hopping sensation, billed in his homeland as “Marky Mark”. Pronouncing his name, itself almost too long to fit across the back of his jersey, is so fiendish that the New South Wales Waratahs released videos of his team-mates failing. But do not let his jaunty diminutive fool you, for the winger is poised to dominate debate around the Wallabies all the way to their home World Cup.

The issue is not his outrageous talent, already displayed to dazzling effect as a dual-code international, but whether he will represent Australia at all at next year’s tournament. It should be a fait accompli, given Nawaqanitawase has already earned 11 Wallabies caps, scoring six tries and becoming perhaps the only player to emerge with any credit from the ill-starred World Cup campaign in 2023. But courtesy of a controversial World Rugby rule, enabling players to switch their allegiance to another country after a three-year stand-down period if they have a credible birthright connection, his national loyalties are up for negotiation once more.

It is not a straight fight either, with Nawaqanitawase’s exotic ancestry producing a three-way tussle between Australia, Fiji and Italy. His father, Sevuloni, is Fijian, his mother, Fiona Tavehi, has Italian heritage, and he has grown up in Sydney’s inner-west suburb of Burwood. As such, all three countries have legitimate claims on his commitment, and he appears determined to play them off against each other for as long as possible. When the issue came up in a recent interview, the 26-year-old, a highly personable figure but one acutely aware of his own value, was reticent. “It’s a touchy subject at the moment,” he deflected. “I love all my cultures.”

This coyness sticks in the craw of many Australians, even former Wallabies. “I want people who want to play for the Wallabies,” said Matt Giteau, the celebrated former back and Test centurion. “If you don’t, then go somewhere else.” He also suggested there was a financial motive to Nawaqanitawase fluttering his eyelashes in different directions. After all, here is a player capable of transcending his sport, who has morphed in the three years since his last Test as a Wallaby into a sensation in the 13-man game, compiling jaw-dropping highlight reels and winning a National Rugby League title with the Sydney Roosters. But should Rugby Australia have to pay a premium for this transformation?

“I know what Marky can bring, how good he has been in league and what he could offer rugby,” Giteau argued. “He could be huge for us, but if he doesn’t want to be with us, then why pay for that? We don’t have to pay for his loyalty. Your loyalty should come off the back of wanting to play for the jersey.” Not for the first time in rugby, with its absurdly lax laws around national ties, a decision that should be based on passion and soul is instead being warped into a purely mercenary exercise.

Nawaqanitawase, for his part, disputes that money is a guiding factor. But this stretches credulity, when the main reason he now plays his club rugby in Japan for the Saitama Wild Knights is the pay cheque, up to £750,000 per season. Plus, it hardly screams selflessness that the agent, Milan Volavola-Shankar, has assumed such a central role in this saga, declaring last month that there was no guarantee of a Wallabies return and that his client was keeping all his options open.

The situation has gone beyond a joke. So far this year we have been treated to England calling up Benhard Janse van Rensburg to their summer squad, despite the Bristol centre being so immutably South African that he played in 2016 for his native land’s Under-20s, cementing himself as a “Baby Bok”. He qualifies for England simply by virtue of completing five years’ residency, prompting Steve Borthwick to announce his “capture”. At the same time as the Rugby Football Union blocks the involvement of the Willis brothers, Jack and Tom, the brilliant back-rowers who have had such instant impacts in France, it throws its arms around a back who would be hard-pressed even to make a Springboks third team.

While Janse van Rensburg has been ruled out of this month’s Nations Championship matches after suffering two serious head injuries, Italy are turning for Saturday’s Test against Argentina to Domingo Miotti, despite the fly-half having previously played 10 Tests for the Pumas. But after the obligatory international stand-down, and the confirmation of an Italian grandfather, he is assimilated seamlessly into the Azzurri. The optics are uncomfortable. Originally, a key intention of the stand-down rule was to give a leg up to Tier Two nations, allowing Tier One players with ancestral links to see out their careers there. For example, Israel Folau, as an Australian of Tongan parentage, secured an international transfer after 73 Wallabies appearances to wear Tonga’s shirt in 2022.

But the spectacle of Nawaqanitawase exploiting this loophole in the prime of his career leaves a sour taste. “Maybe it’s just a bit of a ploy for Rugby Australia to have to dip into their coffers if they want him to play for us,” lamented Drew Mitchell, who gave the Wallabies 11 years’ service. Such is the grim nature of the international arms race now, where allegiance is defined less by desire than by how much you can pump up your worth as a gun for hire.