Australian coach Chris Anderson has slammed criticism of rugby league by the general manager of the Australian Rugby Union, John O'Neill.

Anderson was responding to statements by O'Neill, who said the ARU would invite Australian winger Wendell Sailor to discussions regarding a possible switch to rugby union.

O'Neill suggested the standard of international rugby league was well below that of international rugby union.

"They've had a fair few hundred-point hit-outs, haven't they?" Anderson asked. "I think it's fairly petty, what he said. I don't want to get into a slanging match along those lines, comparing games.

"We're here having a good time, we've got a quality side and we're going to do well. I think it's unfortunate that he's trying to detract from our game."

For so long rugby has fought the threat of league poachers, but in recent years, and particularly since the game's entry into professionalism, rugby has held its own and is now actively approaching rugby league players.

On the back of two significant sponsorship deals, O'Neill said the ARU would approach Sailor having already held discussions during the year with several other league stars including Australian winger Adam MacDougall and former Kangaroo Matthew Johns.

"It's obviously an admission by them that they can't grow their own and we obviously develop kids better than they do," Anderson said. "We've got to make sure that we're doing a good job with our development. We need to rehash it a little, the way we do things.

"We've done it the same way for 100 years and the goalposts have changed a little bit so we need to make sure we protect our kids coming through."