But there is a push for the age that young players can be bound to a manager to be significantly increased. The plan is for players being prevented from linking with an agent until the calendar year in which they turn 18. Loading There are already strict protocols in place about how and when agents can approach teenage stars of the future as they seek to build some of the most powerful client bases in the game, often regenerated with the backing of kids barely into high school. But the days of sewing up deals at schoolboy matches and carnivals for players aged 14 or 15 could be numbered.

Under current rules, NRL clubs can only sign players to a full-time top-30 or development contract at the age of 18, preventing them from playing NRL until they're adults. But train-and-trial deals can be formalised as long as a player is 17 on November 1. The introduction of competitions such as the country-based Andrew Johns Cup and Laurie Daley Cup for regional NSW's best under 16s and under 18s talent is thought to have helped the campaign to lift the minimum age for player-agent contracts. The competitions are the bush equivalent of the Harold Matthews and SG Ball in metropolitan areas and will allow country kids to develop and finish schooling in their home environment. Most NRL clubs are attached to regional affiliates which will act as junior nurseries.

"To be able to not let them sign at a younger age does help us, particularly with the Andrew Johns and Laurie Daley cups we're playing at the moment," Country Rugby League chief executive Terry Quinn said. "We're offering another alternative there as well. "That helps us align with an NRL club which most of our regions are now. We offer that pathway right through now and it's going to be beneficial for those kids to stay at home rather than being out of their comfort zone in Sydney or wherever it is to play in those comps. "At a young age kids may or may not make it and they can become disillusioned with the game and so do the families and parents." Perhaps the changes will be most keenly felt in New Zealand, whose system is losing teenagers at a younger age each year as the game's most highly respected talent scouts and agents narrow their focus on the increasing band of Polynesians playing in the NRL. The Warriors' new owners, Carlaw Heritage Trust and Autex Industries, have been backers of the pathways re-boot as they eye an overhaul of New Zealand's rich breeding ground.

Every second person here in New Zealand wants to be a player agent for a young, talented New Zealander and send them over to Australia Cameron McGregor "We've been concerned for some time now about the number of our players coming over to Australia and losing the cream of our players from New Zealand, and specifically Auckland," Carlaw Heritage Trust and Auckland Rugby League chairman Cameron McGregor said. "We've done some stats on it and we believe over the last five years there's been 800 players out of New Zealand register with Australian clubs. About 60 per cent of them would be Auckland players and they're aged 14 to 20. "We're losing our pathways in New Zealand. We believe we're being pillaged by all the NRL clubs and they're getting younger and younger.

"Every second person here in New Zealand wants to be a player agent for a young, talented New Zealander and send them over to Australia. Somehow we have to try to fix that up." The possibility of player agents having to tweak their business models comes as the long-running investigation into the conduct of some managers in the Parramatta Eels salary cap scandal nears a resolution.