Green are all still around today in the NRL in some form, many were give opportunities to survive that simply weren't offered to other clubs, and those opportunities weren't handed out based on merit.
Yellow (IMO the most unjust of the clubs that were kicked out) were wrapped up as part of the "peace deals", but were wrapped up with money in the bank and potentially could have survived and grown into big clubs given time.They were also in better situations than quite a few of the clubs that were 'saved' when they were forced to shut up shop.
Orange were folded out of hand as part of the peace talks. Obviously South were eventually allowed back into the comp due to a dodgy decision by a judge that was overturned pretty much straight away (probably should have been booted out again as soon as it was overturned as well, but that is a whole other discussion)...
Red went broke, but almost certainly would have gone broke independently of SL due to other factors.
Blue, are much more complex situations.
As you obviously know the Bears merged with Manly then that merger failed (broadly speaking both parties are equally responsible for the failure). Were they forced to merge unnecessarily? Probably yes. Were they forced to merge purely as a result of SL? Probably no. But either way the Bears and Manlys' failed merger is their own fault not some grand conspiracy by News (or whoever) to get the Bears out of the comp, and even so the Bears still had a much softer landing then most of the clubs that were booted cause at least they are still alive and kicking (SQ, the Rams, etc, etc, can't say the same thing).
Without going in to deep cause you could write a whole book about this little chapter in NZ RL history, Auckland did actually fold and then the NZ Warriors old owner (who's name bloody escapes me at the moment) bought the Warriors brand from the owners of the old Auckland club and negotiated with the NRL for a new club and the successors to the Auckland Warriors to take part in the NRL from 2000, the NZ Warrriors. So technically the Auckland Warriors and the NZ Warriors aren't even the same club and without the bloke who's name I forget they wouldn't exist at all, but yeah very long story short.
Also your info on how the storm came to be isn't true either, they were going to be part of SL in 98 whether or not the two comps merged, so no the Western Reds, Rams, and Mariners were not "dissolved to form" the Storm as the Storm already existed before they were dissolved, it's just that once the others folded (really only the Reds and Mariners) their players flushed the market and the Storm were a new club with a the whole cap to spend and their administration already had connections to most of those players through SL making it much easier to sign them, so naturally the picked the eyes out of the old Reds, Rams, and Mariners rosters.
So yeah nowhere near as clear cut as you make it out to be and definitely not a cases of SL running roughshod over the ARL clubs...
So was Balmain v various clubs. And Wests Magpies had some great rivalries as well. I do concede that West Magpies could be a plausible relocation franchise with the iconic Balmain name badged with a club called Balmain Campbelltown Tigers. But this is pure speculation and folorn hope unfortunately.
