I find the sensitivities of old Magpie supporters here just astonishing. People are supposed to walk around on egg shells, ensuring that they make mention of the little Magpie on the sleeve or that they adopt a preferred formality and call them Wests? Some of you grasp at straws, no you in fact grasp at thin air. Elias was one of the proponents of the merger, one of it's architects and indeed a strong voice in galvanizing the merger.
Elias, along with Pearce, Roach and Sironen have high media profiles, effectively that's the reason they're often quoted. Wests and I don't mean this in an offensive way, just have no ex players that you'd want an opinion from, save for Tommy, who's value is nothing more than comedic. Wests history was largely unsuccessful, they were battlers, survivors etc. If I were an old Wests fan I'd be thanking God every day that a merger saved my team from oblivion, because that's where they were heading. You now have a team of some significant quality and while there has been inconsistency, it's a a world apart from the diabolical decades of non performance. Stop whining, you're coming off an absurdly low base.