What is the National Rugby League Without Perth?

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The NRL is always changing. Rugby league is continuously evolving because it was built from evolution, from rugby union to league. Quintessentially it’s the product it is because the ground beneath it is always moving.

Referees, video referees and NRL bunkers are the talk of the town when we’re not throwing rocks at Daly Cherry-Evans and perhaps quite rightfully so. Officials are there to police the rules and right now, there is too much grey in an area where all we need is black and white.

Only this week former Brisbane Broncos coach Anthony Griffin explained that an extended fourteen team World Club Challenge played in Hong Kong and the United States could be the way of the future.

Triple M’s Matthew Johns also wanted scrums banished from the game because they were taking up too much time.

Phil Gould is against the NRL bunker worried we’re going down the NFL road while New Zealand boss Jim Doyle wants his own State of Origin played between Aucklanders and everyone else.

Yours truly has spat out a few ideas of his own in recent years including a New Year’s Eve Australia versus World XIII, an NRL summer league, South Sydney to play a home game at North Sydney Oval in the Bears old strip and State of Origin to be played outside of Australia (happy with Adelaide or Perth).

 

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/06/27/1226410/113476-the-old-western-reds.jpg

 

But what about this one?

Are you ready?

An NRL club in Perth!

What a novel concept.

Sometimes it feels like we’re so caught up in our own nonsense that we forget the big picture. Sydney Roosters against Leeds Rhinos in New York City sounds awesome but can we walk down and pepper all the cows instead of running down and nabbing one?

The fact is we stuffed with Western Australia once. We had a team there in 1995 and criminally kicked them out at the end of 1997 to keep Illawarra, St George, Balmain, Gold Coast, North Sydney, Adelaide and Western Suburbs. We now know the Steelers and Dragons merged, the Bears and Rams are gone, Gold Coast was gone while we now have the Wests Tigers instead of Balmain and the Magpies. Hindsight is a lovely thing and in a rugby league war, history will generally win out.

We can’t keep denying them and we can’t fight the other codes without a presence we should have never lost. Okay forget the “code wars”, let’s get back to Perth as quickly as possible because we should be there!

South Sydney Rabbitohs and the New Zealand Warriors will battle it out Saturday night at nib Stadium.

Does it take a Sydney club, worried about a poor crowd at ANZ Stadium against the Warriors, to move a game to Perth?

Where is the game plan from the NRL?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08-tcOvg9Lg

 

The West Coast Pirates have been ready for years, ticked every box.

Canberra legend Terry Campese, now plying his trade in the English Super League, told Fairfax’s Steve Mascord that a full round of NRL matches should be played in the western capital.

“..I think you could do it Australia in Perth or somewhere where they want to expand the game in future.”

Does it take Mascord (who should be knighted for his endless spruiking of the international game) and Campese to come up with this stuff?

The Reds in their previous form started planning way back in 1992!

Think about that for a second, that’s twenty three years ago for those playing at home.

Paul Keating was the Prime Minister of Australia, the first Big Day Out is staged in Sydney (headlined by Nirvana) and that Daly Cherry-Evans fella is only three-years-old!

What are we without Perth?

What is anything without everything?

@CurtisWoodward1

 

Video Source: Jason Burton

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