SOAK it up while you can Auckland, Sunday could be a Nines farewell party.

NRL boss Todd Greenberg has revealed the final day of the Auckland Nines could be the last in New Zealand with a desire to bring the popular pre-season tournament to Australia — as soon as next year.

And the world’s best player Johnathan Thurston has backed the plan, saying Nines footy was the perfect vehicle to attract new fans in Australia.

In the wake of one of the smallest day-one crowds (22,000) at Eden Park since the tournament’s inception in 2014, Greenberg declared the NRL was already in talks with organisers Duco Events and Auckland Tourism to shift next year’s pre-season try-fest to Australia.

“We’ve got a strong five-year agreement with them and we’re going to talk to them about what we do in the last year of that agreement,” Greenberg said.

“We’ve started those discussions. What we do for 2018, we’re pretty open to.’’

Greenberg said without sign-off from Duco and Ateed it was premature to declare which city may win the right to host the annual nine-a-side tournament, but suggested Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium was in contention as it is “the world’s best stadium’’.

Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney or Auckland again, were also options with a decision to be made over the next three to four months.

“It’s a fair to say that there’s an appetite from a number of governments for this event,’’ Greenberg said.

“And there’s a reason why, it clearly brings in lots of economic impact.

“We know that we’ve got something that’s pretty special here and we need to think carefully about two things, one is, where we play it. And the second is, when we play it. We’re in a very strong position to being able to talk to all of these governments about what we can bring.’’

Cowboys star Thurston sees it as the ideal marketing tool to net new fans.

“It would be great to take the Nines to other places in Australia and let those communities experience what Nines is all about,’’ he said.

“We have to get new fans to the game and this is the ­perfect example. It’s an ­exciting type of rugby league.”