wests ashfield and wests campbelltown could easily afford it if they wanted to
& yet they don't.
Why? Because an inner city Leagues club wants nothing to do with funding football in the Sth West. They may not come out and explicitly state it, but look at the historical facts.
I love how you guys always fall back on Ashfield, they have involvement in the JV because of the combination of their historical links to Western Suburbs when they played in THEIR disctrict, combined with the fact the team now trains in THEIR disctrict, and plays next door thanks to the Balmain side.
The points made -
1 - Merged JV State Cup side. Yes, the concept annoys me too, yes it's against the original JV agreement. However, the JV is not forcing Western Suburbs to participate in a State Cup merger, they are free to sit outside the JV if they so choose in that comp which they did last year. Whether they like it or not, once their juniors are signed to contracts by the JV, they are the JV's property to dictate to play wherever they like. Frankly, I like the idea of two State Cup sides and can see huge benefits in having both, regardless of what Sheens may want. (If Wests produce two quality fullbacks that we have on contract, we can play one at Balmain one at Wests once they graduate from TC - I fail to see the negative and have never got Sheens argument on this)
2 - Home games. Yes, I CAN see their point here. Is it unfair that 8 games are played in or next to the Balmain district with 4 in the Sth West? Yes. But what do we do? Deals with Homebush or the SFS are worth very very good coin to the club. If we go back to a 6/6 split between the two districts, where do Western Suburbs propose we find the lost coin from? We simply don't make enough off Campbelltown/Leichhardt games to justify throwing away the gaurenteed money that the generic venues provide.
3 - The state of the open aged comp in the Sth West. Can anyone explain what the structure of the funding arrangements for such comps are? I fail to see how the Campbelltown/Macarthur area, or the inner West for that matter are the problem of the JV. Juniors are one thing, but the open aged comp? I don't get why the NRL franchise needs worry about funding such a comp.
Although, admittedly on this, I was chatting to someone about this today, in an ideal world, 5 years down the road, such comps will be entirely funded by the IC, rather than the NRL clubs. We are not there yet, but hopefully down the road this won't be an issue.
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End of the day, these Balmain hating Magpie Warriors need to take a deep breath and realise the reality. Wests Tigers is the future, some things are obviously not going right, and that's fair enough, let's work on those issues (The minimal games in the region should be a priority) but suggestions such as killing the Balmain State Cup side and utilising the JV's connections to keep Wests alive in the comp as an example are counter productive, and they would get alot more sympathy from some if they would not ask for such stupidity and focussed solely on the Sth West, not the f'ing 13 year old chip on the shoulder toward Balmain.
There is an entire generation now who support this club who are WESTS TIGERS supporters, not Balmain, not Western Suburbs. Time for some to let go. (Both sides)