Pacific rugby league bosses say they were not kept in the loop about plans for the Women's World Cup, which ultimately forced many to pull the plug on their qualifying hopes.
For the first time, the Women's World Cup will be played alongside the men's tournament in Sydney next year.
The Cook Islands secured the sixth and final berth, by default, after Fiji, Samoa and Tonga all withdrew from last weekend's Pacific qualifying tournament due to a lack of numbers.
Fiji National Rugby League CEO Timoci Naleba said it was only confirmed in September that the tournament would take place, giving them less than a month to prepare for the qualifying tournament.
"There was this informal discussion over the phone and not speaking formal from the World Cup Committee that there would be the Women's World Cup event as well. There was nothing coming from the Committee to confirm that there would be."
"To have that announcement the same as the men's World Cup event...they should have confirmed everything right from the start...the beginning of this year," he said.
Naleba said Fiji originally agreed to take part in the Pacific qualifiers because he was told their Australian chapter would be able to field a team but the time frame proved too challenging.
"We would like to make sure that our ladies involvement in rugby league is given the same attention as men and fielding a good team too."
"We have our local competition here that involves women and also we have those that are living in Australia but to do all that we need money and to raise those funds or to answer sponsors for those funds it will take a while," he said.
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Cook Islands Rugby League President Charles Carlson said all the countries had struggled to raise money and put a team together.
"It was difficult for everybody. We had a game two weeks ago against Fiji. Fiji actually had a team there and we also had a team but it wasn't sort of the best team and the other teams were struggling to get a team but we managed to pull a team together," he said.
"This was a very short notice and I can understand where the other teams are coming from, with no finance to assist with the games.
"We basically had to look for sponsors and do a bit of quick fundraising to get our girls together. We just crashed in one of the guy's house there - can't afford a motel but just start from the bottom and work our way up."
Charles Carlson said the Cook Islands team are hopeful of arranging some matches prior to next year's tournament.
