We are only having this discussion because Balmain is broke. Dumpty Humpty will not come out and say this, but this is why this is happening. If Balmain was strong enough to stand alone they would, we all know they would dump Wests so fast. A few years ago Balmain wanted Balmain Ryde Eastwood to be the feeder club and I remember reading in the paper about the death of Wests and everybody on this web site argued that this was a great thing, the arguement was Ryde Eastwood is willing to pay for the team, so lets go down that road. Great thinking and sound business logic, so now, well why don't we make Wests Magpies the feeder club. We all know why this won't happen, Balmain would lose a little bit of the control they have. Give the people in Campbelltown something. Give them the junior teams.
Balmain are broke. Pure and simple
We should all remember the reason why Wests Tigers exist is because Balmain knew they were going out the door backwards. The Sydney Tigers at Parramatta stadium experiment in the nineties didn't work and the last train leaving the station was this merger with Wests. Balmain and Wests knew that if they merged with Parramatta and Canterbury it would have been a complete takeover. This was the only hope for Balmain to survive. Wests were gone, Wests had done the right thing by moving to a new and untapped area but their board were not able to make it work.
Balmain do not have a junior competition and their Rep teams are made up of mostly Parramatta and Penrith juniors looking for second chance. We can all pretend that they have juniors but they don't. We can let them go.
We could still play games at Leichhardt Oval, that's part of our heritage. We should play some games their until the ground is condemed. Leichhardt council or any council is not going to spend all lest $50 million to bring the old girl up to scratch when they can sell the site for a motza. Balmain is also fighting against a council which doesn't want a new Leagues club built on the old site. The club still has a long fight ahead with this. It was Star City that killed off Balmain Leagues before and would do it again.
We can argue all we want, but I think we all know that Campbelltown is the future. It's time for Wests Tigers to move the whole everything to Campbelltown. We don't need Concord. Concord is just some warm and fuzzy place designed to be a half way point for both clubs.
St George took over Illawarra because the knew that Kogarah was dead. They did it to survive. St George moved everything to Wollongong because they know thats their future. We don't, we still have this sometimes romantic idea that Balmain and the inner West is the home of Rugby League. Its not, it might have been in the forties and fifties but its not anymore nore will it ever be again.
We need each other to survive but why don't we just tell it how it is. Balmain can't afford to pay its way anymore but want Wests to take the fall.
