Illawarra & Saints works. I followed saints, I don’t even think about it anymore.
Thanks for perfectly illustrating my point that it was a hostile takeover and as such failed as for all intents and purposes they've basically murdered off the Illawarra portion of the 'merger' thus defeating the whole purpose of a merger in the first place...
For the Dragons merging with the Steelers was a means to an end, a stepping stone if you will, and kudos for them as it did work, but they never intended to 'merge' with the Steelers only to cannibalise them for their own survival, and as such as far as a merger goes it's a massive failure as just like pretty much every other merger in sporting history that's been 'successful' it's been 'successful' because one side of the partnership has successfully murdered the other and not cause they have successfully merged to create a new entity.
Putting grounds and teams in as many schools as possible. Funded by AFL.
Get the kids and the adults follow.
They've already done that in Canberra, they've periodically had multiple big pushes into local schools since the 90s (and probably before as well). They'll do the same in Manly and the rest of Northern Sydney with or without the Sea Eagles or any NRL club presence in Northern Sydney (frankly I'd be surprised if they don't already).
I know this is a novel idea but maybe if we spent less time worrying about what the AFL is doing and reacting to it, i.e. basically letting them dictate to us how we operate in this regard, and more time doing what is best for RL it wouldn't be as much of an issue, cause all the school kids would already have a Steeden in their hands cause the NRL would have already had their own big push into the schools!
As an aside there was a period down here about 5-6 years ago when the AFL and ACT gov were paying for new Aussie Rules posts to be put in to replace old sets at schools (and some public ovals as well), and as part of that they put some in to replace a handful of rugby and soccer posts on rectangular fields at schools around the town as well, so there were a handful of schools with soccer and rugby pitches that had Aussie Rules posts for a while (one was literally around the corner from where I live).
Most if not all of them are gone now as the posts have been changed back overtime, but it's a funny anecdote of some of the stuff that they do that you are so worried about...
