Varying interest levels: Kiwi forward Martin Taupau is tackled during the Anzac Test against Australia in Sydney in 2014. Credit:Getty Images In explaining this on Twitter, your correspondent found himself saying the tournament is "not a charity" and it "is a charity" in the space of half an hour. Let me explain what I meant. The World Cup is NOT a charity to a city that has eight and a half teams, 100 games a year and has historically shown little interest in the sport once the the grand final is finished. Rugby league does not need further promotion in Sydney – it has seven solid months of that. Who, in the Harbour City, is going to ignore the sport all year and suddenly take an interest when Tonga plays Wales at Penrith?

The World Cup IS – absolutely – a charity for development officers in places like the Cook Islands, Jamaica and Germany. It is the only income for four years for the RLIF, an organisation with an unprepossessing office it shares with the RLEF and RFL below street level in Fitzrovia, London. That's it. The sport of rugby league everywhere but Australia and the UK is expected to survive (not just internationally but completely) on the profits from one tournament and whatever it can get in government grants for keeping kids off the street. Someone said to me "so the World Cup is there for countries that don't play or care about rugby league". An emphatic YES. It's the Robin Hood of our sport. We take players from the rich countries, give them to the poor every four years and then make money which we also give to the poor. Basically, rugby league is coming to Australia and New Zealand (in particular, PNG not being a particularly wealthy place) at the end of next year and trying to make some cash from the only fans lt has - so it can fund development everywhere else. Then four years later, it will take up a collection in the north of England. It's like a giant plate being passed around.

In that sense it is absolutely appropriate that if it can get guarantees from state and city governments to lessen its exposure to financial risk, it should accept those guarantees. You might say there are more parishioners to whom the plate may be passed in Sydney. But history shows that in October and November, they don't come to church. Development of minnows critical: The Cook Islands perform a haka in front of the Tonga team prior to the Rugby League World Cup match at Leigh in 2013. Credit:Laurence Griffiths Only two countries – England and New Zealand – will bring fans. Some Queenslanders will travel to other states for games. Maybe only four or five nations will even bring journalists. For the rest, it's like Australia being in a hurling World Cup in Ireland. There will be a lot of players in the team with only tenuous links to Australia, the Australian media and public won't know it's even on unless they are related to those players.

But what gets administrators of small localised sports like hurling and rugby league out of bed each day is to get another player, another spectator. It's better to have a microscopic presence in a territory than no presence at all. The World Cup is there to make a tiny sport a tiny bit less tiny. And judging by he draw, next year's tournament is a good chance of doing that. Book here Loading