New frontier: Paul Broughton with three Chinese rugby league players. OK. ARL Commission chair John Grant has taken a supervisory role at Rugby League Central but surely must be concentrating on the search for Smith's successor. The contents of Greenberg's email reflect an over-worked, leaderless administration. In answer to a request from Broughton for funding, Greenberg writes: "I will reach out to NSWRL & understand if there is anything within their 2016 budget parameters. "I am struggling with access to any additional funding currently but I understand your effort & sacrifice to try and make this happen."

Broughton seeks $36,000 to have the biggest nation on Earth play rugby league. Sounds ludicrous? Broughton is a former first-grade player and coach (Newtown and Balmain) who was the NSWRL's first development officer under John Quayle, who sent him to the Gold Coast as their first chief executive (Chargers) and later became chairman of the Titans. He initiated the first meeting on the Gold Coast for the bid to host the Commonwealth Games in 2018. He was chair of the Australia-China Foundation from 1999 to 2008 and now heads the China Australia Sports Exchange. OK, he's 85, or could be a couple of years older but appears ageless, wandering the world like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, hectoring foreigners on the glory of rugby league. The Rugby League International Federation asked Broughton to invite China to enter a team in the 2017 Rugby League World Cup for Universities and simultaneously enter a women's team in the 2017 RLWC in Australia. The problem? Broughton has already spent a minimum of $250,000 of his own money visiting China and the funds have run out. The IRLF and the NSWRL can't help and Broughton can't secure a meeting with anyone at the ARLC.

"The sad part is the Chinese Government, after our precious time and patience selling the game at a dozen government banquets and meetings, actually now want to be in the rugby league World Cup tournaments," he says. "How can that happen when we cannot even secure a primary meeting on planning with RL Central?" Broughton says the Australian Football League has spent about $3 million in China but is making little progress. (How can the biggest country in the world adopt a sport named after another country? The Chinese aren't into cultural cringe). But it seems that the words "World Cup" are the password into decision making at the People's Republic of China, even though there are no words for rugby league in Mandarin. "When I first approached officials at Chinese universities about rugby league, they said 'no, we'll stick with union' but they were overruled by the government," Broughton said.

"We now have agreements with the Chinese authorities for rugby league for the next 10 years. "Whilst this is in the greater city of Shanghai (27 million) it also will be in conjunction with the other five sports universities through China and has the approval of central government. "One of our strategies is to conduct a Shanghai Nines immediately after the 2017 RWC. "I agree with Mal Meninga that the best way to showcase rugby league to a new nation is via Nines." Broughton wants to get to China before the 2019 Rugby World Cup, to be played in Japan.

"China will make the 2019 RWC and dominate Asia whilst rugby league will, as it is now, have no presence in China and the next nation to go to union will be India," Broughton predicts. "The Chinese women's team has already qualified for this year's Rio Olympics. "Their kids can play. I scouted three kids for NRL clubs at the Shanghai University of Sport. "We're talking 98 kgs and 12.4 [seconds] for the 100 metres." One of Broughton's submissions to the ARLC refers to a need for $450,000 over four years, although he says $36,000 for the Shanghai project will consolidate the gains he has made.

"Are we going to say in 2019, that all for $36,000, we lost the People's Republic of China?" he asks.