More of this please: 'Outsiders' ran the Auckland Nines. Credit:Photosport One reason, of course, is many of the same people involved in attracting the sponsorship and funding at World Cup time work for the club game in their day jobs. Rugby league is internally incentivised not to be too successful at international level because the money might come out of the club game. Tonga, Scotland and the rest are like the sports you only pay attention to every four years at the Olympics; they're the hammer throw and discus of rugby league. Producers and researchers working on the current tournament are confronted with basic questions that even the most obscure of sports answers simply, such as 'what constitutes a full international cap?' and 'who's playing who next year?' But the gaps we leave are everywhere; the infrastructure of rugby league is like Swiss cheese with only the things that pay the bills receiving the necessary attention. The National Rugby League isn't national at all.

There are nines tournaments played all over the world each year that are not linked in any way and have no sponsors or media coverage. Below NRL and Super League there is no central place for streaming coverage – something that's been exposed by the World Cup warm-up games, which have been on Facebook, Youtube, DailyMotion and rugby-league.com. We can't even guarantee the match that decides which club is our world champion will be played next year! The point I want to make in this Discord is that while the game's full-time administrators struggle to put out spot-fires, pay the bills and keep their head above water, it's outsiders who take things forward. Outsiders started Toronto, outsiders ran the Auckland Nines, outsiders are setting up leagues in all manner of places. Look at the former player Jimmy Smith; scrambling as you read this to get the World Cup on radio after dealing directly with IMG over rights. That's the sort of rich soil the virgin ground of international rugby league can boast.

Instead of trying to protect its IP and shut people down, rugby league needs to create an attractive environment for entrepreneurs. Particularly internationally, there are opportunities for the hard work to be done by others if the right environment is created. Someone involved in coverage of the World Cup, whose core interests do not necessarily involve international footy, said to me last week: if one sponsor came on board and grabbed the international game by the scruff of the neck, that sponsor would be remembered forever. It would be associated with the sport the way Winfield always will be in Australia. Last year I tried a hashtag survey on Twitter #rugbyleagueshould. But people came up with mundane, parochial things such as "bring back contested scrums". A lot can be done if we think more broadly than that. As a journalist I am supposed to be removed, to sit back and dispassionately report on developments in my chosen round. But after a while on the same round, you feel like it's your duty to start commenting and offering an opinion because you've seen it all and you've seen the same mistakes made over and over again.

And after a certain time offering an opinion, it feels equally necessary to get involved in some way because you've been telling other people what they should do for so long. There has never been a time when it was more apparent what direction things are heading in: with each passing week we see someone coming along and filling the voids discussed above, doing the things that the people inside the game are too under-resourced or compromised to do. I've got to the point, as a 48-year-old who's been around the sport since I was 12, where I want to be part of it. Your correspondent has put together an informal group including some very skilled and well-resourced people to bring these nines tournaments together. I've spoken to a number of very well connected, diverse and intelligent people about a single video-streaming platform for rugby league below Super League and the NRL. We launched Mascord Brownz, selling licensed national team merchandise and giving money back to governing bodies, last week.

I've even tried to get the right people together to make a Super League team in Perth happen. Instead of sitting back writing supercilious columns like Discord and not really expecting administrators to read them, why not do what Smith has done and get your hands dirty? You know that expression "build it and they will come"? I set up Facebook and Twitter for Albania Rugby League a few weeks ago (yes, I've started at A with all the countries that don't have any rugby league – yet). Within a fortnight I got a message from one Arnaldo Telo, for Chernobyl. Rugby league has started in Albania. At this point you might be thinking "why is this guy writing about this in a column? Someone else will take his ideas and do it themselves. Surely it's in his interests to keep this stuff quiet … aside from the jersey shop." It is in my interest not to talk about these things publicly. But is it in rugby league's interest?

Firstly, I think as a journalist it's important I declare my hand and remain transparent. But secondly, I really want not just someone, but everyone, to steal my ideas and make them real. I want to see these things done in my lifetime. I'm not trying to earn money from them. One thing I have learned recently is that if you try to bring two people together who have the same aim, they often won't talk to each other. They think, "I'm a long way down the track with this, I don't want that guy stealing my glory". Go ahead, steal my glory. Just make it happen. Someone has to ... There is a common enemy and that is inaction. That's governing bodies shutting things down because they didn't think of them first. That's having a rival in the sports marketplace nick the idea and put it into action before rugby league does. Toronto and the proposed teams in New York and Hamilton Ontario show that those who come in and do what officials won't or can't are the people who take the sport forward.