Mal Meninga's chances of taking over the vacant Australian rugby league team coaching job have dimmed as a decision approaches.

Australian Rugby League chief executive Geoff Carr confirmed on Tuesday that Meninga's name would be on a shortlist to be submitted to the board next month.

But he said Meninga could not coach both Australia and Queensland.

Queensland Rugby League chairman John McDonald believes Meninga is the best man for the Kangaroos job, made vacant when Ricky Stuart stood down following an investigation into his verbal attack on World Cup final referee Ashley Klein.

He has urged the ARL board to change the rules to allow Meninga to coach Australia and the Queensland Origin team.

But Carr said Meninga would have to surrender his Queensland job because the ARL's policy of not appointing an Origin coach to the national job was not likely to change.

Meninga, who is set to bid for record fourth straight Origin series win with the Maroons, has said publicly he will not step down as Queensland coach, despite the prestige attached to coaching his national team.

Meninga said on Tuesday that the ARL needed to get moving on appointing a new coach.

"They've got to sort of pull their finger out so to speak and make some decisions about who's going to be the next coach, particularly if it's going to be an NRL coach because a bit of planning goes around that," Meninga told Channel 10.

Carr said the ARL board would determine the best coach to replace Stuart.

"Mal is on the list, if he doesn't coach Queensland," Carr said.

"Since the (1985) Terry Fearnley situation it's been ARL policy not to have a national coach who is also a state coach.

"I'm sure the NSW members of the board would be sticking to that policy.

"Mal is a great coach who would be well suited to the job.

"But you don't want to put people in a job where they may be compromised, not through their own integrity, but through the circumstances they get into."

Carr believed the problems faced by former Kangaroos coach Fearnley in 1985, when he was accused of selection bias toward his NSW Origin players, should prevent a change of rules.

"I'm firmly of the view the reason why they made that call back in the eighties after the trouble.

"To go down that path again, we haven't learned from history."

The same policy rules out NSW Origin coach Craig Bellamy, despite his great success with the Melbourne club.

Wayne Bennett, who stepped down after losing the Tri Nations in 2005, would be unlikely to be interested in returning to the Kangaroos role now given his new job with St George Illawarra.

Manly's Des Hasler, Sydney Roosters coach Brad Fittler and Titans coach John Cartwright however could be possibilities.

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