Argentina will use the international conference on the future of the game which is being staged in Woking at the end of the month to lobby for inclusion in the Six Nations championship, but their likely tournament destiny would appear to lie in the southern hemisphere.

The Pumas finished third in the World Cup last month, elevating them to the rank of a tier-one nation. That will guarantee them tour matches in November and June, but to break into the Six Nations or Tri-Nations, they need the support of the countries involved.

Argentina prefer the Six Nations because the vast bulk of their national squad play club rugby in Europe and they would base themselves in Belgium or Spain. Taking part in the Tri-Nations would present logistical difficulties: the squad would need to gather at the beginning of May, a month in which club tournaments in Europe are at the stage when the silver polisher is getting to work.

Players would have to make a choice and as the domestic game in Argentina is amateur, they would be bound to stay where the money is. A Seven Nations including the Pumas would, at this moment, hold appeal to sponsors and broadcasters, but it would require England and France to reach an agreement with their clubs over an extra international fixture. Sacrificing an autumn Test would be an option, but it would almost certainly cost the two unions financially.

The Woking conference has been called to look at ways of achieving an integrated global season. The French clubs are looking at ways of shortening a season which starts in August and stretches into June: removing two clubs from the 14-strong top division is an option, but even then Argentina's players would go from a nine-month-long club season into a three-month Tri-Nations. It would not work.

As things stand, the Six Nations is the only option for Argentina, but the major southern-hemisphere unions are currently conducting a strategic review of their tournaments - the Super 14 series and the Tri-Nations - with a view to expansion. The Pumas are lobbying the International Rugby Board for inclusion in the Six Nations or Tri-Nations, but that is not a decision for the governing body which is currently negotiating with the Argentinian Rugby Union (UAR) for a remodelling of the way the game is run in the country.

The IRB has significant funds for the UAR but it will only release them when it is satisfied that the Union, which currently does not have a chief executive, is being run on professional lines. The Board's vision of the future would see Argentina supply two teams to the Super 14, creating 60 professional players in the country, and then compete in the Tri-Nations.

The Sanzar countries, even though South Africa won the World Cup, recognise that the Super 14, while providing excitement and placing a considerable emphasis on skill, lacks the knock-out element of the Heineken Cup, something which proved detrimental to both New Zealand and Australia in France. Expanding it to include sides from Argentina and the three Pacific islands would allow it to be split into, say, two groups of 10 with the top four in each entering the knock-out stage.

The Tri-Nations could be expanded to four with Argentina or even five with the Pacific islands fielding a composite team and that would give the southern hemisphere greater financial parity with Europe. A Tri-Nations competing against a Seven Nations would add to what it is already a marked divide in terms of commercial clout and hasten the exodus of players from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa to Europe.

Everyone is agreed that Argentina deserve to play in a major tournament. Their record against all the Six Nations in recent years is outstanding and they are among the top five sides in the world, but their squad in France was, to put it politely, mature and what the UAR needs to sort out is a pathway at home for emerging players.

Argentina's campaign is being orchestrated by their former outside-half and current sports minister Hugo Porta. He said today that the Six Nations was the UAR's preferred option because of the presence of so many Pumas in Europe, but he did not rule out the Tri-Nations, and some of the Six Nations countries feel that bolstering the tournaments in the south would reduce the number of overseas players plying their trade in Europe and force clubs to place greater emphasis on developing local talent.

And it is the Tri-Nations option that the IRB will be working on in the coming weeks and months. New Zealand have in the past been reluctant to consider changes to the Super 14 and Tri-Nations beyond including extra teams from Australia and South Africa. Their persistent failure to win the World Cup, coupled with the loss of players at their peak, such as Carl Hayman and Luke McAlister, to Europe, has forced a rethink. They can no long afford to be insular and it is in the south, despite the travelling which would be involved, where Argentina's destiny surely lies.