The Wallabies are poised to accept pay cuts to help stop the cash-strapped Australian rugby union going broke.
A new Collective Bargaining Agreement is set to end the days of Australian players earning a guaranteed $16,000 per Test win, lose or draw on top of their salaries.
The ARU's in a perilous financial position after posting $21 million deficit in the past two years.
The Wallabies' dismal results this year - winning just three of their nine Tests has dropped them to No.4 in the world impacting match attendances and sponsorship.
The union's chief executive Bill Pulver has already cut employee numbers at the ARU and also made significant cutbacks to the high-performance unit.
He says his first six months has been spent ripping costs out of the place and from a financial perspective the ARU will be skating on thin ice for the next couple of years.
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Even a welcome windfall from the British and Irish Lions tour in winter won't get the ARU out of the hole dug by years of over-expenditure, largely with executive salaries.
A reduction of player salaries has firmly been on the agenda and should be revealed in the next two months when a new collective aggreement is finalised.
