I'm livid the WARL decided to relax on bringing the NRL to Perth. What's the point of bringing 2 in 2005, then going cold-turkey and skipping 2006 entirely? I believe Souths were keen to come back to play in Perth, the Broncos were keen to take a home game here (I assume it was probably a pre-season game, but it's still a game that could very easily have happened), Cronulla were keen on taking their home game against the Warriors here again, and Michael Hagan told Mum, Dad, my sister, and her best friend (when they were in Newcastle in December 2004) that the Knights were playing Penrith in Perth in the 2006 pre-season. He said that everything was in place, all it needed was a couple of signatures on the dotted lines. That's all not taking into consideration the other half-a-dozen or so un-named teams that have said they're happy to play here if some criteria is met.
On the positive side, Alice Springs is hosting the Knights-Panthers game, so that's good for their development of League ...
I completely agree with SalfordRedsWA, union wouldn't do anything for us, why should we for them? They don't appear to need a leg-up in Perth's media.
On the WARL Competition side of things, as far as I know, there is all 6 teams from 2005 competing in 2006, plus a Kalgoorlie team that will play all 15 games (plus, perhaps, the finals after that) in Perth in 2006. There is supposedly another team competing in the WARL in 2006 ... is it Port Headland? It's another out-of-town team anyway.
In 2007, the Kalgoorlie team will remain in the WARL, but they'll have home and away games (same as everyone else). Once again, I presume the other new team will have home games as well.
That's the plan last time I heard anyway. The WARL has an irritating habit of flip-flopping though, so I'll believe it when I see it.