Under the proposed $150 million package, which would be split over five years, the countries have a vision to establish a Pacific rugby championships featuring teams from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, and possibly Australian states.

Other initiatives would include setting up formal pathways for players to transition from school rugby union to the elite level, increasing access to professional coaching at academies and revitalising local sevens rugby tournaments to prepare players for the world stage.

There would also be a focus on community development programs, using rugby union as a platform for working on life skills and raising awareness about issues such as domestic violence and drugs, as well as climate change.

The Australian government funding would be managed by Rugby Australia, just as the Australian Rugby League Commission is overseeing the injection of money into PNG and rugby league in the region.

The Albanese government has set aside $250 million of its 10-year, $600 million NRL package for the development of the game in the Pacific. More than half of NRL players come from a Pasifika background and the region is seen as a key production line for talent.

“[The NRL funding is] perceived as a huge threat to the development of rugby in the country, but this funding would help us stabilise the game and also assist in areas where we have never been to before,” said Fiji Rugby Union chief executive Koli Sewabu.

Fiji are ninth, one place below the Wallabies, in the men’s rugby union world rankings but Tonga and Samoa are rated 19th and 20th respectively.

They have fallen from their glory days when they could beat top-10 teams, with Samoa having made the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup in 1991 and 1995, and Tonga having defeated eventual finalists France at the 2011 World Cup.

While they have gone backwards, the national rugby league teams of Tonga and Samoa have become forces, aided by eligibility rules that permit their Australian-raised players from also taking the field in the code’s showpiece State of Origin series.

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Tonga Rugby Union chief Aisea Aholelei said enhanced support for rugby union from Australia would be the “lift and the morale boost that we need”.

“We are still the national sport, and we are still the No.1 sport in the Pacific … us, Fiji and Samoa,” he said.

“There will be that threat from rugby league here and obviously, they do have that funding. But we have everything else, so if we work together, we can continue to grow.”

The Australian government was contacted for comment.

It gives about $1 million a year to the Fijian Drua men’s and women’s teams, which compete in the Super Rugby competitions and is in the third year of a four-year, $14.2 million partnership with Rugby Australia to support high-performance rugby in the Pacific.

Australia also assists rugby union through other multi-sport Pacific programs, but they are dwarfed by its backing of rugby league.