The Western Reds and Western Force say hi.
Sure the Force were kinda resurrected but have hardly been a runaway success.
I’m not against Perth as such (I went there for the Dogs game which opened Optus Stadium in 2018, it was great) and certainly not pro-PNG either but it’s been tried and it’s a drain on the code propping up the franchise so something would have to be very different to try it again funding wise. At least if it’s a Perth team the N in NRL might finally be valid. It’s a risk.
Perth collapsed because during the super league war they made Perth themselves pay the flight bills and in those days that was too much with the flight prices back then. Plus a lot of new clubs died. They weren’t failures they had one of the highest attendance rates in 1996. You can check this. This is before the eastern wave.
The nrl should have struck when the force collapsed (which was more to do with super rugby collapsing) but they didn’t. They can still salvage now.
Wa is the richest Aussie state and has a lot of rugby in it already.
And the logistics is no excuse because AFL have two teams there and so do the nbl and even baseballs.
It also grows the pie in terms of new eyes and is a better stable bet than PNG.
I’m not against PNG being there one day but it’s a country where it isn’t safe to walk the street and literally the only country in the world you can accidentally eat another person as what happened to my friend. I’m not lying about that.