Tosh

No club in their right mind would take nearly a quarter of their home games to another venue let alone Port Moresby. Linking up with the PNG hunters is a good idea though.

What with the population explosion in the western corridor and maybe even a future A-league expansion bid from the area a new stadium could potentially be built in either Logan Or Ipswich. Brisbane are also hosting the 2032 summer Olympics as well so again potentially some new stadiums could be getting built or upgraded in the area. Theres also the QE II stadium which was the old broncos ground.

And in the end a Brisbane bid didn’t win!!!

It’s very interesting to see the decline of super rugby in Australia and the breaking up of the competition as a whole with South African teams going their own way and the solo Japanese and Argentinian clubs being dropped. I don’t follow club RU at all but from what I believe the NZ based sides would pump the Australian based sides 9 times out of 10 which led to both poor crowds and viewing figures in Australia and maybe even NZ. No doubt that the clubs were haemorrhaging serious amounts of $$$$

In 1994 north’s had the 2nd best average attendance of the Sydney clubs behind Canterbury bulldogs who were minor premiers. I know it’s cherry-picking but it shows that the support was there but that’s all history know and it should stay that way.

Bears officials claim that they have 220k fans

I’m sure that was the original idea of the bears before the super league war broke out.

My god that’s 4 bids from the same city. Talk about increasing your chances. surely 1 of them must win!!!

Isn’t the pledged $15 million coming from the bears side? Also are any of those blokes you mentioned the guy that bankrolls the western force?

A question to our Aussie posters but weren’t the bears originally supposed to move to the central coast fulltime time before the super league war broke out? And also why did north’s and manly merge and who pushed it?

Who are the people putting $15 million on the table mate?

Exactly. It’s a perfect example of a win-win scenario.

They’ve admitted they’ll talk to anyone and everyone. I guess the bears officials will say that they bring the name, tradition, 10’s thousands of fans and $15 million in pledged investment.

Exactly. Thats why where fuc#ed.

The last thing the NRL needs is another dual franchise like that of the st George Illawarra dragons. either have it in one location or not at all as all this trying to be all things and pleasing everyone ends up being a complete mess and pleasing nobody.

Queensland is a tough sell unfortunately as any further and future additions to the NRL from that state will be seen by some as not proper expansion even though it has a large population and large future projected growth especially in south East Queensland. Not to mention the fact that RL is the #1 code in the state. For me south east Queensland could easily accommodate another franchise in either the city of Brisbane or the western corridor covering the cities of Logan and Ipswich. This could potentially give you a nice spread of teams covering the largest population centres with the Brisbane broncos, Gold Coast titans, moreton bay dolphins and then either another city of Brisbane team or Ipswich/Logan team along with the North Queensland cowboys.

Of course with the bears no longer playing out of the north Sydney oval in the NRL the manly sea Eagles are vital for the NRL to have a presence in the northern Sydney region. I was talking about the time shortly after the end of the super league war in which imo the bears should have represented the north Sydney region in the NRL and the sea Eagles should have moved to and represented the central coast region. I would have also relocated the balmain tigers to Brisbane and merged them with the Queensland cup side East’s tigers now currently known as the Brisbane tigers. I would have also merged the bulldogs and magpies clubs to form the western bulldogs eventually playing out of a new stadium in Liverpool but that’s for another discussion and topic.

PNG’s problems are far deeper than just the lack of genuine NRL standard players for any potential NRL side to draw upon. You’ve got to factor in the high crime and poverty rates and the fact that PNG is a 3rd world country which will no doubt trigger a lot of woke people but unfortunately these are all undeniable facts.

Manly should have relocated to the central coast but that’s never going to happen now what with all the redevelopment of brookvale oval and their centre of excellence.

I could be way off the mark here but I’m sure I read that the Perth based club would be known only as “The Bears” similar to “The Dolphins.” Bears officials claim that they’ve got something like $20million financial backing if given the Green light and you can bet that they’d like to keep the north’s colours as well as the logo and as many “home” games to be held at the north Sydney oval as possible. Personally I think they only deserve 1 “home” game at the north Sydney oval considering the amount of away games that would be played in Sydney.

What with all their demands you just get the feeling that the bears are waiting to screw over Perth and move back into the north Sydney oval fulltime.

Hopefully all this is without the involvement of the Bears as well.

I don’t know what else Perth would have to do to be awarded an NRL franchise as they practically tick all the boxes for being ripe for expansion. Big city. New Expansion area territory. past history of attracting big crowds both at domestic and rep level. Well established and historical grassroots RL. Decent standard stadium with pledged government support for redevelopment. Pledged financial support from the western Australian government.