The plan comes as club presidents in both cities ducked for cover after a week in which grassroots rugby's rivalries and financial struggles were laid bare. Not for the first time, Australian rugby appears to be at war with itself, although scratch the surface and it quickly emerges that most of the trouble stems from a number of the Sydney clubs and their passionate spokespeople, including high-profile former greats Brett Papworth, Bob Dwyer and Simon Poidevin.

A historic interstate club rugby forum meeting scheduled for November 12 at Sydney University between Brisbane and Sydney presidents has been scrapped as top clubs north of the border have sought to distance themselves from Papworth's criticism and plans to launch a rival to the NRC, which were detailed in a series of emails obtained by Fairfax Media. The presidents of leading Brisbane clubs Brothers and University of Queensland both stressed the concept, termed in the emails "a potential alternative to the NRC", was a long-term goal that would require buy-in from the state unions and the ARU, and would not be possible to fund in the short-term.

"If we went it alone without the ARU's consent there is no way we could afford it," UQ Rugby club president Michael Zaicek said, adding that the mood among Brisbane clubs was overwhelmingly to work with the QRU and ARU to grow the game at junior and club level.

"There is no quick fix to this, we are all in an uber-competitive environment and it's important that we're all aligned, that clubs fall in behind the state unions and the state unions fall in behind the national union," Zaicek said. "We need the opportunity for dialogue before we man the battle stations."

There was little mood for dialogue in Sydney, although at least one club and a high-ranking NSW official were reluctant to add further fuel to a fire many see as immensely damaging to the code in Australia. As Waratahs, Wallabies, Sydney University and NSW Country Eagles prop Paddy Ryan, who will captain his team in the NRC grand final in Tamworth on Saturday, said: "I was a bit disappointed to see that [issue] brought up this week, it's the week we should be worrying about the Bledisloe, in particular the [Wallaroos], and the NRC final".