The Rugby League World Cup kicks off in Cardiff this afternoon with Scottish organisers of the sport hoping a successful tournament can help them make up for a crippling cut in support.

Changes to the funding of rugby league development as a whole from Sport England have inevitably had a knock-on effect (no pun initially intended but none the less relevant), for what remains very much a minority sport this side of the Border.

While some support is also provided by sportscotland, that the Scottish programme is principally dependent on English support should itself perhaps be part of a national debate. But rather than lament the situation, though, the response speaks to the nature of this grittiest of sports.

"This is a hugely exciting time for our sport so it is a real shame it is happening at a time that the Rugby Football League are cutting funding in a way that means we are having to halve the number of development officers in Scotland from four to two," said Gavin Willacy, the Scotland team's media officer. "That is a result of support funding for the sport being slashed but we just have to find new ways of working and we now need volunteers in Scotland to come forward in ever greater numbers."

Based with the Scotland team in Workington for the pool stage of the tournament, the man charged with maximising this promotional opportunity knows the best possible way of inspiring others to help out will be through the national team's performances.

The odds are heavily against them doing well. The Scots may have, in their captain, Danny Brough, the playmaker who was acknowledged as the British game's player of their year or - as they slightly cheesily dub it, their Man of Steel - and a few more players drawn from Super League and Australian National Rugby League (NRL).

However, they start against a Tonga side that almost entirely comprises players from the NRL, the world game's biggest domestic competition, then face an Italy side which is also packed with NRL players and sent shockwaves through the sport by beating England in a warm-up match last weekend.

Scotland's campaign should also be seen in the context of them only having won one previous match at a World Cup finals: they beat Fiji in Australia five years ago, a day Steve McCormack, their head coach, regards as the high point of close to a decade in that job.

Yet, as much as the odds seem to be stacking up against the Scots, there is a determination to remain upbeat about the way forward regardless of what happens over the next two weeks.

That is partly because there are real signs global organisers of the game are at last beginning to take a more strategic approach to what has been more than a century of failed attempts to build significant meaningful competition outside of Lancashire, Yorkshire, New South Wales and Queensland.

In many ways their failure to do so in the past left a door permanently open for rugby union.

In particular, it is galling for diehard supporters of the 13-man code that union's World Cup can now claim to be the third-biggest sporting event of its kind, behind the soccer version and the Olympics, while their tournament, with its much longer heritage, still struggles to make a real impact.

They tend to accept readily that the sport has only itself to blame. Its World Cup was founded in 1954, a full 30 years before the first union version and just 24 years after soccer showed the way, but has been held at almost random intervals in the interim. The next five were held in 1957, 1960, 1968, 1970 and 1972, and featured only four nations.

The original trophy, which is once more presented to the winners, was stolen during the 1970 competition while on public display in Bradford, before eventually turning up on a rubbish dump in the town 20 years later.

Various revamps have sometimes had a Great Britain team involved but other times it has split into component parts and the staging of the event has continued to be sporadic.

Asked how he hopes the sport can build on this tournament, Willacy says: "It's a complicated question. The first parts of the answer should come after tomorrow's European Federation meeting and the International Federation meeting on Monday, by the end of which the calendar for the next four years should be ratified."

That will include setting up a more competitive second-tier annual European Cup tournament involving Scotland, Ireland, France and Wales, the top prize for which will be qualification for the elite 2016 Four Nations alongside Australia, England and New Zealand, but which also carries the threat of relegation for the team finishing bottom.

That, allied to the prospect of catching the eye for selection for the first Great Britain tour in a decade, could help ensure that Scotland's top Super League and even NRL players seek to make themselves available.

Beyond that, the sport has at long last made a sensible decision not only to fix the dates of future World Cups on a four-yearly basis, but to wait a fifth year ahead of this one in order to claim a slot in the sequence that means it avoids clashes with other major quadrennial and biennial championships.

First things first, though. While there will be no shortage of razzamatazz as it all gets under way when England meet Australia at the Millennium Stadium today, Scotland's focus is far away, geographically and metaphorically, as they anticipate their meeting with Tonga in Workington on Tuesday.

Short-term, their chances of doing more than matching their past achievement of securing a single victory may not be brilliant but, longer term, there are reasons for optimism that this sport is ready to market itself more effectively with a view to real growth.