but that does not necessarily mean more teams in the NRL competition.
The only saving grace is the "not necessary" bit. However this has now been trotted out by Grant, Smith and this unnamed official. Can be read as one of two ways 1. That their will be relocation or merger to keep number at 16 but bring in new areas or 2. That there will be no new clubs but more games played on the road.
Given how conservative the NRL and commission have been ove rthe last two years it is very hard to think that number 1 is an option they are willing to take on. So that means no new clubs, crumbs being continued to be fed to places like Perth and Gosford and little hope we will see the game grow to any great heights in the next decade.
Of course I could be pleasantly surprised and they could announce 4 new teams to come in lol
Or option 3 they're trying keep to things on the down low as it's very early days in the review and they don't want to falsely get anyone's hopes up yet because they haven't even decided whether they want to expand yet!
I thought that they had made it pretty clear from the start that the whole point of the review was to look into the feasibility of expansion and if it is found to be feasible then which areas should be targeted for expansion.
BTW I wouldn't rule out rationalisation if I were you. The ARL hired the guy that pushed for the AFL to rationalise in the 90s, are mostly controlled by people with business backgrounds and not footy backgrounds (that means less emotional attachment to the clubs) and have been saying lots of things that make it sound like they're at least looking into rationalisation. Not saying that it will happen, just that stranger things have happened.
There was a comment on another forum about the Wellington bid and the audio/statement read was something like this;
"The NRL is due to begin considering expansion next year but work has already begun and understands that officials plan to look at the competition as if they were starting afresh in 2018 and determine where teams should be located."
I remember reading something along those lines as well, and it's a good thing as they should be looking into as many possibilities as possible.