Who de want our children to go for? A team like Wests or Balmain who now don't exist in the top flight, so they now go for the merged entity, because they have no choice... "Balmain don't exist...Wests don't exist... #-o I may as well just go for the Wests Tigers..."
Or do we want them to be cheering for the MIGHTY WESTS TIGERS, a team that is only 5 years old and growing strong? Sure, the past is important, I mean we are the only club with nearly 200 years of "tradition", but what's in the past, is in the past. We can't change the fact that we've merged, any more than we can stop Jason Taylor from leaving Wests, or lowering the northern cross-bar for Bennies Field Goal...
We have to look to the FUTURE! I am not a guy who is opposed to the merger. I love everything about this club (except, until recently, management :evil: ). I love standing on the hill at Leichhardt and listening to old Wests fans chanting Wests, whilst down at Campbelltown the chant of Tigers goes up, around the ground.
I love that shit. I get goosebumps thinking about it. When I say let's remove the Magpie, I don't do it out of malice to old Maggie die-hards, I do it for the future. Balmain already died on me, I don't want internal bickering to bring down the demise of the club I love even more than the Balmain Tigers... The Wests Tigers.