PEOPLE who want Akuila Uate banned from playing for Australia and Willie Manu blocked from England in this year's Four Nations aren't just weighing into rugby league politics.

They're flying in the face of global economic and migration trends.

Fact: people from poorer nations, like Fiji and Tonga, migrate to richer countries, like Australia and England.

Rugby league's challenge is to first acknowledge this, then allow for it and eventually take advantage of it. I believe this is possible.

Developments in other sports have shown that rugby league fans fighting for the concept of some "higher" nationality which lasts a lifetime no matter what the circumstances, are going to lose.

The decision to ban St George Illawarra's Neville Costigan from representing Papua New Guinea in the Four Nations is completely understandable and justifiable - but also wrong.

Rugby league needs Neville Costigan to play for the Kumuls. He has already said PNG is his choice over Australia but he is also passionate about Queensland. He probably likes what you get paid for State of Origin, too.

(By way of background, Costigan was born in PNG and played in the World Cup for them. But he also played for Queensland this year and has played for them before. He was banned from PNG representation on that basis. Uate was born and raised in Fiji but wants to play for NSW and Australia. He's currently not allowed to play for either because he represented Fiji in Pacific Cup last year. Manu, meanwhile, has played six times for Tonga but has been picked in England's preliminary squad on residency grounds. You can represent a country you live in for three years.)

I think it's laudable that the Australian Rugby League has regard for how we look as a sport to outsiders. In Australia, that's not an easy perspective to have because we are often blinded by our own radiance.

David Niu, who runs league in America, says his players were confused to be playing against a Samoan team three years ago that was full of New Zealand internationals who had switched for the sole purpose of qualifying for the World Cup.

But while the ARL and the Rugby League International Federation are asking the right questions, they have come up with the wrong answers.

Our game needs to be mature enough to admit every nation bar Australia, New Zealand and England are strugglers. It's time to stop being embarrassed about this fact.

Pakistan, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates have all taken up league in just the last few months - what a wonderful rate of expansion after 115 years of mainly stagnation!

So let's on the one hand celebrate this activity and on the other acknowledge that Jamaica is not going to come within 90 points of the Kiwis in our lifetimes.

Draw a big red line under the top three teams. You can't play for Australia and switch to New Zealand - at least not within one World Cup cycle.

But if you miss selection in the top three in any given year or any given competion, you can play for another country for which you qualify. We already have the grandparent rule and the residency rule. Let's add the developing nations rule.

Neville isn't going to make the Australia team - let him play for the Kumuls. "Oh, it makes us look Mickey Mouse!'' I hear you say.

Listen here, I'll only say this only once: we ARE Mickey Mouse. The only way we can become a more serious cartoon character, like Aqua Man or the Silver Surfer, is to allow our professional players to go back to these countries and share their experience and knowledge.

And if Willie and Akuila qualify for their new countries under the residency rule ... well, you may not like it but that's life in the 21st century. That cab driver or the bloke down at the North Indian Diner, they've got the same rights as Manu and Uate.

And when a country no longer needs Australia, New Zealand and England's cast-offs - or when the cast-offs are standing in the way of better players - then it will be time to shift that big red line down a rung to include someone else.

And that will be a great day for rugby league.