I find it so laughable that souths fans want to act like Canterbury are a Knight in shining armour.
What about the ARL clubs who stood in the trenches with you, turned down the offer of millions of dollars and fought for the establishment.
The only reason you got kicked out was because super league created 2 extra clubs, bringing it to 22. Everyone lost a lot of money and it was determined rationalisation was needed.
You forget that, to some degree, stgeorge, balmain, western suburbs, Illawarra, norths, (manly at the time) and less emotionally gold coast, perth, south Queensland, Adelaide and hunter all list their position in the league.
Of course Canterbury and Newcastle would stand by you. Newcastle, along with Brisbane and Auckland, were GUARRANTEED a place in the league, they were exempt from criteria.
Canterbury were now the richest, most profitable club in Sydney and by far the strongest SL Sydney team. They would have been number 4 to be included.
If you want to re-write history go for it. But it's like, after WW2, looking back and saying Australia respects Japan the most because they had a nice ceremony for Australia in 1948, ignoring kokoda, bombings, Sydney harbour subs etc. Canterbury were at war with you and you almost died, wake up!!