As Manchester prepares to host this weekend's Rugby League World Cup final, little more than 100 miles away in Scotland, desperate calls are being made by officials who are bidding to keep the sport alive on this side of the border.

Other than World Cup finalists Australia and New Zealand, the national team with most to celebrate at this tournament was Scotland, after they defied all odds to reach the quarter-finals.

Paying players and officials no more than expenses for taking part, they played just one match fewer than England - who spent millions on their campaign - before going out to the same opponents as the Scots.

Yet what has had the potential to be a new beginning for a version of the sport that has shown some capacity to reach into territory that Scottish rugby had previously found impenetrable, could be no more than a last hurrah if the Rugby Football League (RFL), which runs the sport in Britain, cannot be persuaded to change its plans to withdraw all funding from Scotland.

Keith Hogg, chairman of Scotland Rugby League confirmed this week that the sport faces considerable challenges following the RFL's decision to withdraw all funding, leading to its two permanent staff, Mark and Susan Senter, being made redundant within days of their greatest success.

The Senters are behind the Easterhouse Panthers initiative which produced David Scott, the sole homegrown player in Scotland's squad who made a superb World Cup debut in the final pool match against the USA and also performed well against New Zealand in the quarter-final.

"On behalf of everyone associated with rugby league in Scotland, I would like to thank Mark and Susan for all the hard work that they put in on behalf of the sport in recent years. They have made a special contribution," said Hogg.

The chairman went on to express full understanding of the RFL's own major financial problems as a result of having had government funding withdrawn, however he has been concerned by the lack of consultation. "The Board of Scotland Rugby League have been as surprised by these developments as anyone," he said.

"We all understand that the RFL has had a significant funding cut and, having the best interests of the sport at heart, we want to help. However, the RFL has acted on its own, failed to consult us, failed to communicate, failed to properly think through the consequences of their actions and taken a decision which is not in the best interests of the sport in Scotland and the sport in general. Perhaps those in charge at the RFL should remind themselves that they are the governing body of Rugby League in the UK, not just England. "I hope that we can come to a sensible agreement for the future, that the RFL will find some funds to support Scotland, and that we will continue to work together to develop the sport."

There is no question that the timing of this has deeply exacerbated the sense of disappointment and frustration.

This World Cup tournament has, in many ways, been a triumph, showcasing the sport to best advantage, in contrast to the last staging of the tournament in the UK in 2000 which was such a disaster that it was not run again for eight years. However, in many ways, that will only make it more painful for aficionados if, having created the opening for themselves, the sport's authorities now drop the ball with the lie gaping.

They have striven for years to try to break out of the heartlands of New South Wales and Queensland in the Southern Hemisphere and Lancashire and Yorkshire in the Northern Hemisphere.

Now, at last, the profile generated is giving them an opportunity to do that, so there could be no worse time to withdraw development funding.

Nowhere does that apply more than in Scotland since, as well as the team's collective success, their captain Danny Brough has capped his astonishing year with club and country by earning a place on the three-man shortlist for the sport's international player of the year award along with the phenomena that are Sonny Bill Williams of New Zealand and Greg Inglis of Australia. "We now finally have an opportunity to establish rugby league in Scotland and to build from a small, but solid base," said Hogg.

He is excited by the prospect of being able to use to stars of the sport such as Brough and the Australian-based contingent to promote the international game in Scotland in the next few years. "Who would have thought that a player of Peter Wallace's calibre would be prepared to fly over economy class and spend two and a half weeks unpaid in Workington to play for Scotland, but he did and he loved it and he wants to do it again," said Hogg.

Some support is being offered to Scotland Rugby League from SportScotland and Glasgow Life, while Hogg said that sponsors are showing interest and volunteers are emerging.

"We are not talking about asking for vast amounts of money, but we need enough to be able to support two or three part-time staff to do the necessary work and we will be making every effort to get the RFL to contribute towards that," he said.