As the build-up continues to rugby’s first ever World Cup semi-finals to feature teams from a single hemisphere so the question of European priorities becomes ever more important.

It certainly feels as of there is growing evidence that, like English football’s Premier League, the club owners whose only interest is the domestic game, are undermining their respective national causes in England and France in particular by recruiting too many foreign players.

In that context that Steve Hansen - the current All Blacks head coach who was also on their management when the Kiwis won the last World Cup, but who spent the previous one in charge of Wales - has been prepared to lend his voice to the discussion was telling as he drew upon the experience of involvement in rugby in both hemispheres when passing comment on the gulf between his side and France.

Given the problems they have traditionally given the All Blacks the 62-13 thrashing to which the French were subjected at the weekend was truly shocking, not least when placed in the context of the difficulty the New Zealand, Australian and South African rugby unions are having in keeping their best players in the country as European champions Toulon and others offer soccer-style wages to players to join them.

"It's difficult if you're not on the same page and I'm not sure whether in France the two organisations are on the same page,” Hansen said of the club and international set-up there.

"You need to have the same goals and the same vision. There are a lot of foreign players in the Top 14 and that means there are a lot of French players who are not getting the chance to grow and develop.

"It's not my country and I shouldn't say too much, but if you want to be successful at international level you have to be united from the top down.

"You only have to look at the soccer model that rugby up here follows. England haven't won anything for years, yet they have the best Premier League in the world. Most of the best players are playing in that league, but it doesn't reflect on the international team.

"I think we have got our model right. We are all on the same page and we want to support international rugby and all head in the same direction.

“I am not sure up here, if that's the case."

What became ever more clear across the weekend, for all that Wales and Scotland got gallantly close to the Springboks and Wallabies respectively, is that the problem is not confined to the French game.

Ireland and Wales have managed, thanks to their largely Union-funded provincial structures, to continue to punch above their weight in a European context.

However, as in Scotland and Italy, teams in both countries have increasingly looked to imports to fill key roles in their provincial teams in recent seasons, while the nature of England’s ejection from their own tournament was at least as ignominious as that of France.

It is hard to see how this issue can be addressed because the club versus country conflict is a huge issue for commercially driven sports.

They may claim otherwise but the vast majority of club owners, officials and even supporters, care far more about their club’s interests than about national teams.

Consequently appeals to their better nature to look to the greater good seem doomed to fail in England and France in particular.

That presents an on-going opportunity for the Celts and the Pro12 teams in European club/provincial competition as well as on the international stage, at least within Europe, but only if they are not gulled into treating their domestic competition as some sort of equivalent to the Top 14 and the English Premiership.

In international terms they might do better to look at the efforts of Romania and, most particularly, Georgia, pretty much the only teams at this World Cup to be made up entirely of homegrown talent.

As well as earning the right to be given a chance to become top tier teams in their own right, the way they are developing domestic talent should act as an inspiration for the rest of European rugby.