Imagine having a world class player ready to let rip for your national team. Now imagine that same player is in fact ineligible because he plays his club rugby abroad.

That’s the strangely absurd situation which rugby has been grappling with over the past decade and England have been right at the centre of this.

Since the sport became professional, anyone hoping to play for England has had to be on the wage bill for a English club.

That means the pool of players able to wear the red rose is almost exclusively from the Premiership.

For a long time this setup was willingly accepted by most fans, but then the conversation started turning in the early 2010s, spurred when offshore by Englishmen making waves in other domestic leagues.

First there was back rower Steffon Armitage who started making headlines during his time in Toulon for winning the European rugby Player of the Year award in 2014.

His standout performances in the Heineken Cup sent shockwaves through the rugby world, and helped Toulon win three European titles in a row.

And yet, for all his efforts, he didn’t make a single England squad during that period.

If at first this seemed like a one off, it quickly became a worrying trend when a year later Nick Abendanon quickly followed suit, winning the European Player of the Year award for his exploits with Clermont.

The RFU could just about ignore one player shining abroad, but when there are two, the argument becomes much harder to suppress.

However, the RFU stuck to their guns and Armitage and Abendanon, having made the odd England cap in their youth, never played on the international circuit again.

The central argument for this decision was simple.

By encouraging players to stay in the Premiership, using England caps as bait, the overall quality of the league would remain high.

The fear is, once the floodgates opened and players were free to go where they please, the English top flight would be the most hard hit.

As this has never happened to date, it’s difficult to predict if this would in fact materialise.

But what we can say with certainty is English clubs did flourish in the latter stages of the 2010s. Saracens won three European titles, Exeter tasted european success for the first time and in that time span of sustained success England won a Grand Slam in 2016 and reach a World Cup final in 2019.

Now though the landscape has radically changed. Three Premiership clubs have folded, hundreds of senior stars and academy products have been thrown into unemployment and the national team is struggling to average a win rate above 50%.

It’s an unhealthy picture of a sport which was seemingly in its pomp not too long ago. With this decline comes less opportunity. There are now only ten top flight clubs in England that can house players, which has forced many, like Jack Willis, to search for a job overseas.

Those players are still eligible for England’s World Cup squad but after that competition will return to the wilderness.

The dire financial situation plaguing English rugby is one of the central reasons why the eligibility debate has resurfaced, and now may be the time for change to come.

While the Premiership is on its knees, the URC and in particular the Top 14 are still in rude health.

Letting players drift overseas to those leagues with more money, without blackmailing stars with international eligibility laws, would release the strain on English clubs who are still having to work around salary cap laws.

Premiership clubs can’t keep paying high wages when revenue numbers continue to dwindle, so this change would give the league time to heal and reframe its overall financial model.

It also gives players a chance to earn a healthy wage without having to give up future England aspirations.

That’s not the only positive to draw from lifting the embargo on foreign clubmen. You only need to look at the career trajectory of Zach Mercer to validate that.

He left Bath a few years ago with a handful of England caps, moved to Montpellier, won a title, was crown player of the season and returns to England this summer - having signed for Gloucester - as a favourite to start at number eight.

By moving abroad, Mercer was able to test his ability in one of the most grueling league’s in rugby. If other players followed suit, like Joe Simmonds, Jack Nowell and potentially Henry Arundell, England could quickly have a crop of talent who are purpose built for the big moments.

And then when these players head overseas, more opportunities arise for academy boys to show their worth. Therefore, this doesn't just benefit established stars, but future prospects as well. It seems like a no-brainer. Your move RFU.