TOM Brindle has slammed the ‘chopping and changing’ in rugby league after revealing the miniscule budget for Wales’ women’s programme – just £7,500.

The principality lost all three matches in its first ever World Cup campaign, scoring just 12 points and conceding 270.

As talks of the NRL’s ‘partnership’ with Super League – which are reaching papal conclave levels of tedium before any white smoke appears – drag on, the need for cash grows.

And Wales boss Brindle told how investment – of both time and money – is desperately needed for his work after lifting the lid on how little he gets.

He also believes the time for proper action when it comes to the Test arena, of all forms, is now.

Brindle, whose side was hammered 124-6 by Australia’s full-time Jillaroos, said: “We get £7,500 from the Government to deliver our programmes, which is nothing.

“One of Australia’s players has more money than we’ve spent this year. Every year, we’ve had to crap around to find two games and find money.

“Everyone’s a volunteer, so we constantly scrap – pulling in favours to make sure this happens.

“From a Northern Hemisphere point of view, we’re eight years into a long-term strategy – that’s starting to make a difference.

“The next step is how do we get the investment to get the contact time with the players? That investment is needed now.”

All the northern hemisphere sides – England and France’s men and women, Wales’ women and Lebanon’s men – failed to make their World Cup semi-finals.

But while other sports have future tournaments mapped out, no-one knows where the next rugby league version will be.

This one was originally handed to the USA, then France when the promoter did not produce the cash, now Australia after costs proved too much.

A plan to split the women’ tournament to run between the men’s has been ditched, all of which left Brindle taking aim at organisers.

He added: “Lots of other sports use the international game to grow and close gaps – look at rugby union, look at the men’s game with Tonga and Samoa.

“We don’t know where the next World Cup is, we don’t know what the qualification process is, we don’t know when the next opportunity will be.

“If we’re really serious about this, we have to build a long-term plan and stick to it. Over this last period, this tournament could’ve been in three different places.

“We have to build a consistent programme that allows investment and planning, Next year, we don’t know when, where and who we’ll be playing.

“A long-term roadmap that allows investment to flow is required. That’s the starting point.

“Getting one and sticking to it is the most fundamental thing – rugby league has been guilty of chopping and changing too often.”