P&R would never work here in Australia. After years of a club going up and down, from one division to another, fans lose patience. They want to be in the top league and stay there.
How is the NRL a closed shop? They are looking at expansion after 2015. They will be playing at Least 3 games in Perth from next year onwards. Most likely they will have new teams in Perth and a second team in brisbane within the next 5 years. Most likely this will be followed by a second NZ team and a team on the NSW central coast - which would be a reincarnation of the old North Sydney Bears.
Brisbane had a quite strong local League competition for many years, until the Broncos were formed and joined the NSWRL premiership in 1988. In fact the 1986 Kangaroos had 5 players, including the captain, who played in the Brisbane competition, and another two - being Mal Meninga and Gary Belcher, who only left the year before.
Anybody with any knowledge of the game in Australia would know that Perth was under enormous financial stress due to the arrangements whereby they had to pay all the travel costs of visiting teams. Even then they were attracting good crowds before they were sacrificed as part of the re-unification of the game after the Super League War.