Ma'a Nonu will not be eligible once he moves to Toulon after the Rugby World Cup © Getty Images

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The All Blacks are unlikely to follow Australia's lead by selecting overseas-based players, with New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew saying the board had "no immediate thought of changing" its policy to select only players playing Super Rugby in New Zealand.

"You never say never, but our policy is that to wear the All Black jersey you have to play your rugby in New Zealand," Tew said on Radio Sport. "We have treated some players I guess with a little bit of flexibility in terms of their return to the country when they've become eligible but the core policy is if you're not here you don't play for us and we think that's been a very important part of our player retention strategy and there's no immediate thought of changing that.

Australia and New Zealand are both increasingly under pressure for their playing stocks with cashed up European and Japanese clubs offering lucrative contracts to their stars, and All Blacks fans were shocked recently by news of the impending departure of Charles Piutau and Colin Slade - both players seemingly with a long Test career ahead of them.

The Australian Rugby Union bowed to that pressure on Wednesday, with chief executive Bill Pulver announcing a radical new selection policy by which overseas-based players who had played 60 Tests and who had held a professional contract in Australia for seven years, were now available for immediate Wallabies selection. But Tew said there was little chance that New Zealand would follow Australia's lead.

"Right now the player market is incredibly competitive - it's that time of the four-year cycle," Tew said.

"We had quite a long discussion about it around the board table yesterday and we have no intentions of changing that policy but we're constantly reviewing what we're doing and if circumstances change we'd be foolish not to think about it but right now our policy is the policy and that's the end of it."