New Zealand's stranglehold on the Bledisloe Cup has now hit the 19-year mark and the former All Blacks mentor has offered a left-field solution as Australia look to close the gap.

Hansen's revamped pathway would see Super Rugby AU retained as a five-team competition, but only three franchises would then play in a Trans-Tasman tournament against their New Zealand counterparts.

Those three teams would be filled by Australia's best players and could play under the guise of existing clubs or start afresh, with Hansen adamant "you need to make it harder to be a Wallaby, make it harder to be a Super player".

"Firstly, I think you've got the talent. I just think your model, your pathway for your players to get to Test rugby is not quite right," Hansen said on the ABS's Corbin & Ben with Corbin Middlemas and Ben Cameron.

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"I loved the competition you had just recently where you played everybody in Australia and played each other all interstate [in Super Rugby AU]. I thought that was great, but I think you need a tier above that.

"We look at the Super teams, there is too many of them. If you want to call that tier above the interstate games Super Rugby, you only need three teams. I think it would be a big challenge for Australian rugby to not have Queensland or NSW or the Brumbies or whoever you want to call them playing.

"For them to be able to prepare their players to compete at Test rugby the way they should be allowed to prepare, I think they need to pick team A, B and C, select players from all the interstates, throw them into those three teams, give them a higher wage than the interstate players, and make it really competitive to get in.

"From there, I think they will be a lot more competitive in the Super games, they'll win more games, they'll get confidence."

Hansen understands why Rugby Australia is determined to persist with five Super Rugby teams given it provides the code with a national footprint rather than restricting it to the east coast.

But he believes there needs to be another tier to provide a level of intensity which would prepare Australia's best for the All Blacks.

Cutting two teams from a Super Rugby Trans-Tasman competition - or perhaps building three new entities to play at that level - would force a dramatic change for an already cash-strapped code.

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