Chammas Article

[GNR4LIFE]

I'm not advocating sacking Marshall but I don't get why the assumption is they would leave if Marshall was sacked. Api signed to play for Madge, a coach he had worked with previously. When Madge was sacked he said he was disappointed but will honour his contract. Why would he have a different stance now?
Luai there is more of an argument given Marshall was the one who recruited him. Though I think Luai is more loyal to his $1.2mil than to Marshall and I am far from convinced he would get that anywhere else in Sydney. Additionally we are led to believe he was active in recruiting the likes of May and Turuva to the club. Not sure he is the type that would turn his back on them after getting them here.
Finally, they may both like Benji. Who's to say they won't similarly like the next bloke?

It’s interesting regarding Luai’s contract. Hypothetically if he activated his clause, he’d be negotiating with other clubs from scratch. I’d never really thought about it, but it’s not a situation where we would have to top him up at another club because the contract would be void due to him. So yeah, he’d very likely have to take a pay cut. Definitely something in the club’s favour.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

I agree. Luai isnt getting close to that money elsewhere. Maybe if he wants to move to Perth.

That’s only club I reckon. If he did seek to activate it, and the Bears wanted to make him their marquee man. Not getting that money anywhere else.

 

[rozelle_rudy]

The comparison wasn't about results but the destruction he caused during his tenure, he made more of a mess of our roster than anyone see below.

Can't agree with that, either. Not about results? It's always about results.
The loss of Tedesco, Moses and Woods occurred on Cleary's watch. Brought in duds like Packer and Mbye.

Then Maguire took over a squad sitting just outside the 8 for consecutive years and changed it almost completely, but we sank further down the ladder the longer he stayed.

 

[Rock Hopper Steve]

Can't agree with that, either. Not about results? It's always about results.
The loss of Tedesco, Moses and Woods occurred on Cleary's watch. Brought in duds like Packer and Mbye.

Then Maguire took over a squad sitting just outside the 8 for consecutive years and changed it almost completely, but we sank further down the ladder the longer he stayed.

The big 3 unhappiness started when Taylor was in charge and what has he done since, never got another 1st grade gig, in fact all he does is kiss the arses of the 1st grade coaches in the game day boxes.

 

[Needaname]

That’s only club I reckon. If he did seek to activate it, and the Bears wanted to make him their marquee man. Not getting that money anywhere else.

We’ll know mid way next year anyway. It’s not a November 1st thing.

 

[mtd#2]

This is false. It's an outdated view. There is no current friction between the two joint venture clubs. Mainly because Balmain has long ceased to exist in reality. It has no money, no leagues club, little say in the running of WT, who, in reality, is wholly owned by Holman Barnes Group, aka Wests Ashfield.

I understand this...

Let me elaborate a bit..

There is still a Balmain Tigers and there is still a Wests Magpies, despite us having merged to be one club..

If we look at our teams:

KOE: Wests Magpies
Jersey Flegg: Wests Tigers
SG Ball: Wests Magpies & Balmain Tigers
Harrold Matts: Wests Magpies & Balmain Tigers

SG Ball and Harrold Matt's players are currently learning in different systems and competing against each other.. then they get pulled into a team to play together when they reach Jersey Flegg where they have come from different systems...

In my opinion there needs to be a single development system. It should be:

KOE: Wests Tigers
Jersey Flegg: Wests Tigers
SG Ball: Wests Tigers
Harrold Matts: Wests Tigers

We need the best of the best playing together in the one team from Harrold Matthews up...

If we don't consolidate then we should get used to the fact young blokes are going to leave.. they don't come through as "Wests Tigers".. they come through as Balmain Tigers and Wests Magpies... Its time we move forward..

We also need one home ground for the Wests Tigers where the all grades train... I recall my time playing in Matt's and Ball - I had exposure to all of the grades because we'd see them around.. we weren't training halfway across the city from each other .. we were one club and one team.. as it stands the NRL team operates as a seperate entity out of Concord... Balmain train in the inner west and Wests out near Campbelltown... Its backward.. and we aren't moving forward if we continue to operate like this

 

[BZN]

BZN, I say this with all due respect as I can see how much the Wests Magpies mean to you... but most people don't care what happened last year, let alone 25 or 50 years ago. Its just the reality of the world we live in... Its all about the shiny new toy which is the Wests tigers

From what I have seen, I don't think the MAJORITY on here care about the Magpies or Balmain, let alone dismiss the supporters of those clubs in the junior grades - because generally speaking, they don't care.. You're probably focusing on the opinions of a select few Balmain heads, because again, most people don't care about the past, they just want success for the Wests Tigers for the future. For note, I grew up with the Balmain Tigers throughout the 90s (sounds like you might be older than me) but if someone was to say that they are merging Maggie's and Balmain as a whole, I'd be very happy.

I work in the tech industry and I see mergers and acquisitions all the time... The businesses that succeed are the ones that move forward under the new brand and umbrella... The ones that try and hold onto the past end up just 'existing'... They don't succeed and are always fighting to survive - because they don't move forward into the future. They are too caught up in the "this isn't exactly a 50/50 split and there isn't enough representation from business A'. When they should infact be using that time working on strategic plans as one business to move forward into the future.

Legacy clubs like Balmain and Magpies have their place in history. But the fact we are 20 years post the JV and there's still talk of us vs them should really tell you everything you need to know..

Its my opinion that the Magpies and Balmain need to fully amalgamate under the Wests Tigers umbrella to stop simply surviving, so we can focus on thriving. I know it might feel like a stab to the heart as a loyal traditional fan but it's what needs to happen for the betterment of the Wests Tigers...

***Thanks, mtd#2--I truly respect what you have written and your effort to see the bigger picture.

I've always wanted the JV to thrive.
I want the Wests Tigers to succeed...on the field, at the boardroom level, and in the eyes of the rugby league community.

But I do need to gently share how hard it's been for some of us from the Magpies side.
Over the years, I've felt bullied, sidelined, and sometimes outright mocked...not for bad takes, but for simply identifying with the Magpies. There's been talk of 'sell the club', replacing Wests Ashfield with Balmain figures, even whimsical calls for the Wiggles to take over ownership. I know some of it is satire, but the subtext often sounds personal.

When people signed the petitions to dismantle the current board...without clearly expressing whether the intention was to rebalance governance or push a Balmain resurgence...it left a lot of us confused and concerned. Thats not to say criticism isn't valid. But when criticism turns into identity attacks, it's no longer about progress...it's about power.

And with the Magpie emblem seemingly disappearing from official gear, or at least seemingly getting smaller each year, when the black and white Magpies colours are slipping quietly into history as if they're irrelevant, it feels like symbolic erasure...not evolution.
Those symbols aren't just visual...they're cultural signposts for thousands of supporters that still bleed black and white.

I don't cling to the past mtd#2.

I just ask that we respect the whole history, the full ownership, and the fans who've stuck with this JV through thick and thin.
If we can do that, maybe we move forward in a way that honours everyone!!!

 

[innsaneink]

I understand this...

Let me elaborate a bit..

There is still a Balmain Tigers and there is still a Wests Magpies, despite us having merged to be one club..

If we look at our teams:

KOE: Wests Magpies
Jersey Flegg: Wests Tigers
SG Ball: Wests Magpies & Balmain Tigers
Harrold Matts: Wests Magpies & Balmain Tigers

SG Ball and Harrold Matt's players are currently learning in different systems and competing against each other.. then they get pulled into a team to play together when they reach Jersey Flegg where they have come from different systems...

In my opinion there needs to be a single development system. It should be:

KOE: Wests Tigers
Jersey Flegg: Wests Tigers
SG Ball: Wests Tigers
Harrold Matts: Wests Tigers

We need the best of the best playing together in the one team from Harrold Matthews up...

If we don't consolidate then we should get used to the fact young blokes are going to leave.. they don't come through as "Wests Tigers".. they come through as Balmain Tigers and Wests Magpies... Its time we move forward..

We also need one home ground for the Wests Tigers where the all grades train... I recall my time playing in Matt's and Ball - I had exposure to all of the grades because we'd see them around.. we weren't training halfway across the city from each other .. we were one club and one team.. as it stands the NRL team operates as a seperate entity out of Concord... Balmain train in the inner west and Wests out near Campbelltown... Its backward.. and we aren't moving forward if we continue to operate like this

Makes it very difficult for say a 15 or 16 yo matts player midway thru high school...or a sg ball player at the end of high school...having to travel out of district for training I dunno how often a week.
Did this with my son and rep cricket...all over bloody sydney every 2nd weekend

 

[mtd#2]

Makes it very difficult for say a 15 or 16 yo matts player midway thru high school...or a sg ball player at the end of high school...having to travel out of district for training I dunno how often a week.
Did this with my son and rep cricket...all over bloody sydney every 2nd weekend

Yeah I forgot to touch on this. I went through the same challenges myself having to travel almost an hour each way to training 4 times a week (3 midweek and once on weekends). There were a few of us, so it made it easier for our parents who would car pool.

This is why I think we need one home ground that is in between Balmain and Campbelltown... If we become the club I know we can be and have superstar teams at the Matts and Ball, kids and parents will go to all lengths necessary to get them to training.. even better, we get the club to do shuttle runs for the kids the same way they do for the patrons/pokie players who attend the leagues clubs.

I don't follow the Matt's or Ball these days but I notice we didn't make the semi finals for either this year. Im guessing if we had a combined team with the best players from both Balmain and Wests, that we would have had a presence in the semis...

 

[rozelle_rudy]

I understand this...

Let me elaborate a bit..

There is still a Balmain Tigers and there is still a Wests Magpies, despite us having merged to be one club..

If we look at our teams:

KOE: Wests Magpies
Jersey Flegg: Wests Tigers
SG Ball: Wests Magpies & Balmain Tigers
Harrold Matts: Wests Magpies & Balmain Tigers

SG Ball and Harrold Matt's players are currently learning in different systems and competing against each other.. then they get pulled into a team to play together when they reach Jersey Flegg where they have come from different systems...

In my opinion there needs to be a single development system. It should be:

KOE: Wests Tigers
Jersey Flegg: Wests Tigers
SG Ball: Wests Tigers
Harrold Matts: Wests Tigers

We need the best of the best playing together in the one team from Harrold Matthews up...

If we don't consolidate then we should get used to the fact young blokes are going to leave.. they don't come through as "Wests Tigers".. they come through as Balmain Tigers and Wests Magpies... Its time we move forward..

We also need one home ground for the Wests Tigers where the all grades train... I recall my time playing in Matt's and Ball - I had exposure to all of the grades because we'd see them around.. we weren't training halfway across the city from each other .. we were one club and one team.. as it stands the NRL team operates as a seperate entity out of Concord... Balmain train in the inner west and Wests out near Campbelltown... Its backward.. and we aren't moving forward if we continue to operate like this

The Balmain sides are funded by Wests Ashfield/HBG and wouldn't exist otherwise, because Balmain is broke.
HBG seems happy to prop up what's left of Balmain as a separate footy organisation. Presumably, this is because of the geographical separation from the other juniors operation, Wests Magpies out of the Macarthur area, making it onerous on families of young footballers to travel an hour each way across Sydney for district juniors matches.

 

[mtd#2]

The Balmain sides are funded by Wests Ashfield/HBG and wouldn't exist otherwise, because Balmain is broke.
HBG seems happy to prop up what's left of Balmain as a separate footy organisation. Presumably, this is because of the geographical separation from the other juniors operation, Wests Magpies out of the Macarthur area, making it onerous on families of young footballers to travel an hour each way across Sydney for district juniors matches.

Clubs like the Roosters have familes travel from places like Penrith and the Central Coast every single year.

If we centralised everything, we don't just become a development club, we become a destination club.

 

[Bellend]

Clubs like the Roosters have familes travel from places like Penrith and the Central Coast every single year.

If we centralised everything, we don't just become a development club, we become a destination club.

Centraliised should have happen 2 years after we become one club. We have wasted the last 20 years been ineffective.

 

[cochise]

***Thanks, mtd#2--I truly respect what you have written and your effort to see the bigger picture.

I've always wanted the JV to thrive.
I want the Wests Tigers to succeed...on the field, at the boardroom level, and in the eyes of the rugby league community.

But I do need to gently share how hard it's been for some of us from the Magpies side.
Over the years, I've felt bullied, sidelined, and sometimes outright mocked...not for bad takes, but for simply identifying with the Magpies. There's been talk of 'sell the club', replacing Wests Ashfield with Balmain figures, even whimsical calls for the Wiggles to take over ownership. I know some of it is satire, but the subtext often sounds personal.

When people signed the petitions to dismantle the current board...without clearly expressing whether the intention was to rebalance governance or push a Balmain resurgence...it left a lot of us confused and concerned. Thats not to say criticism isn't valid. But when criticism turns into identity attacks, it's no longer about progress...it's about power.

And with the Magpie emblem seemingly disappearing from official gear, or at least seemingly getting smaller each year, when the black and white Magpies colours are slipping quietly into history as if they're irrelevant, it feels like symbolic erasure...not evolution.
Those symbols aren't just visual...they're cultural signposts for thousands of supporters that still bleed black and white.

I don't cling to the past mtd#2.

I just ask that we respect the whole history, the full ownership, and the fans who've stuck with this JV through thick and thin.
If we can do that, maybe we move forward in a way that honours everyone!!!

What complete and utter nonsense, you were told many times what the petition was about but chose to see it as an attack on the Magpies.

What you don't understand is people have moved on from this Magpies v Balmain rubbish but you cling to it so much it permeates through every single post you make here. That is why people get annoyed with you because you do in fact cling to the past and won't let go.

I had no affiliation with the Magpies before 2000, yet I have made the trip to lidcombe multiple times this season, including last weekend, to watch them play. There is no hatred of the Magpies.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

What complete and utter nonsense, you were told many times what the petition was about but chose to see it as an attack on the Magpies.

What you don't understand is people have moved on from this Magpies v Balmain rubbish but you cling to it so much it permeates through every single post you make here. That is why people get annoyed with you because you do in fact cling to the past and won't let go.

I had no affiliation with the Magpies before 2000, yet I have made the trip to lidcombe multiple times this season, including last weekend, to watch them play. There is no hatred of the Magpies.

I was seriously pro Magipe for the first 10-15 years. Any Wests v Balmain argument was like a moth to a flame for me. But then one day you wake up and realise it’s been nearly 20 years since either club played an NRL game. Life has moved on. Now it’s 25 years. We are almost closer to 2050 than the year 2000, and Wests and Balmain’s last first grade games were before 2000. Puts the relevance into perspective.

 

[gallagher]

I was seriously pro Magipe for the first 10-15 years. Any Wests v Balmain argument was like a moth to a flame for me. But then one day you wake up and realise it’s been nearly 20 years since either club played an NRL game. Life has moved on. Now it’s 25 years. We are almost closer to 2050 than the year 2000, and Wests and Balmain’s last first grade games were before 2000. Puts the relevance into perspective.

It should be irrelevant but we have our club asking for funding for not one but 2 stadiums, in the same city! We're seriously f##ked in the head.

 

[batboy]

As well as Concord and Lidcombe

 

[Tom Shines]

.

It should be irrelevant but we have our club asking for funding for not one but 2 stadiums, in the same city! We're seriously f##ked in the head.

We need a stadium in Campbelltown…

 

[mtd#2]

It should be irrelevant but we have our club asking for funding for not one but 2 stadiums, in the same city! We're seriously f##ked in the head.

If you were given the funding for a new stadium and leagues club (assume the land was available) where would you build it?

If we were trying to find something central it would be around Bankstown - which is smack bang in the heart of bulldogs area.

Lidcombe is 40km from Campbelltown and still a 40 min drive for ppl in that area. Its only 15km from leichardt.

Concord is basically the same as leichardt oval and the same distance from Campbelltown as Lidcombe...

It isn't an easy one because there are more juniors in the Campbelltown area and I think we will see less and less talent coming from the inner west over the next 20 years.

 

[Needaname]

Makes it very difficult for say a 15 or 16 yo matts player midway thru high school...or a sg ball player at the end of high school...having to travel out of district for training I dunno how often a week.
Did this with my son and rep cricket...all over bloody sydney every 2nd weekend

But what happens to the guys that don’t make it.l?They’ll look at other clubs at the elite level to trial for.
Use LG as an example he went from his local area to Parramatta for reps. The same would apply surely.
If combined WT juniors rep teams were based out of concord it could make it enticing enough given they at least are traveling to use elite level facilities in their training seasons.

 

[BZN]

What complete and utter nonsense, you were told many times what the petition was about but chose to see it as an attack on the Magpies.

What you don't understand is people have moved on from this Magpies v Balmain rubbish but you cling to it so much it permeates through every single post you make here. That is why people get annoyed with you because you do in fact cling to the past and won't let go.

I had no affiliation with the Magpies before 2000, yet I have made the trip to lidcombe multiple times this season, including last weekend, to watch them play. There is no hatred of the Magpies.

Cochise...if my feelings are "complete and utter nonsense" then perhaps we see emotion differently.

What you might call clinging, others might call CARING.
I don't carry pitchforks...I carry stories, memories, and a sense of pride that refuses to be quietly shelved.

Lidcombe isn't just a place where footy happens, it's where identity still shows up in black and white, waving thru the crowd.

I have never said "I want the Magpies back" as you have claimed.
What I have said is that the Magpies never truly left.
They're still woven into the JV financially, culturally and structurally.
Wanting visibility for a 90% stakeholder isn't nostalgia...it's logic.
If you feel my posts are saturated with Magpie DNA, that's because I've lived that legacy, and I believe a joint venture should reflect joint heritage.

If you hadn't come at me with both barrels from my 1st post, I might have seen your trips to Lidcombe in a more generous light.
But let's be honest, watching the Magpies while waving the "just move on" banner is a bit like attending ANZAC Day and asking people to forget about history.

The irony is, Balmain loyalists still get to hold on to the Tiger name and colours in junior grades as well as the NRL...there's visibility, there's symbolism and the tribalism connected with that.

If the KOE side gets stripped to just Wests Tigers branding, Magpie fans will be left with nothing more than memories.
For the Magpies, it's not about wanting a statue or museum...it's about having 'something' still standing that says...We Were Here and We still Are.

So no, this isn't about clinging...it's about continuity.
You say people have moved on...I say many have adapted, but haven't forgotten where their roots are, unlike many on here saying 'the Magpies/Tigers mean nothing to me now', when in fact you still have a team called the Tigers to follow with Tigers colours.
There's a difference.

Symbols aren't sentimental clutter. They're the scaffolding of belonging.
Balmain Tigers have 90% of the scaffolding in place, with the miserly 10% left for the Magpies seemingly about to be pushed into a deep, dark, damp, dirty dungeon.

We can consolidate systems.
We can streamline pathways.
But let's not bulldoze identity on the way.

If Balmain's history gets a mention, then the Magpies deserve one too.
Not just in quiet boardroom minutes, but in colours, crests and culture.
That's not division...that's balance.

The Magpies Watchtower still stands...not to divide, but to guard what should never be erased.

If the goal is Unity, then respect is the starting line.
I'm happy to walk forward with anyone...but not by stepping over where we came from.