Rorters and other clubs like Eels, Dogs, Manly, Broncos and Storm are all still benefitting from the Super League War.
The clubs that manoeuvred themselves to be a critical part of either side's war plans (ARL or News) reaped financial and status rewards that continue to this day. Some clubs like Manly were just lucky to be in a dominant on-field position when Murdoch came knocking, also with Ken Arthurson at the helm, the ARL doubled-down on clubs like Manly.
Rorters in particular, went from battlers to supremos, and they now have the smarts to know how to stay at the top. They bought Phil Gould and Brad Fittler, the two biggest pro-ARL chess pieces of the Super League War, went 100% into bed with Uncle Nick, and the rest is history.
Tigers and Wests on the other hand, nobody cared and they got nothing until they merged (i.e. self-sacrificed). Poor management wasted the initial financing, but then we also had to deal with a decade-long cold-war of in-fighting, which is both our own fault, but also just a built-in factor when trying to combine two entities with a century each of history. By comparison the other mergers - St George basically subsumed Illawarra and Manly backstabbed Bears, so there can't be any in-fighting when one side of the merger kills off the other.
Of course if Tigers were better at what they do, they could have used the good years of the merger to leapfrog to more sustained success. But they failed to accomplish this and I would argue the NRL 2020+ is as lop-sided as it has ever been, so the haves and have-nots haven't really changed in a decade. You can almost predict the Bottom 8 2023 right now - Tigers, Knights, Titans, Warriors, Dragons, Raiders and 2 others taking their turn.
