I think the travel costs and toll on players to and from Perth will always be the negative aspect of any NRL team in Perth and ultimately keep them from being a top 6 club.
I'm all for Toowoomba. Nothing to do with me living near Toowoomba :smiley:. But seriously, I think it would work for an NRL team. Toowoomba have a brand new airport (Brisbane West they call it) that has daily flights to Sydney and Melbourne. Just over 1 hours drive to Brisbane. 2 hours to Gold Coast. It's Australia's largest inland city and on the doorstep to the central west of QLD. Its also not far from the whole New England area of NSW. The QLD country Rugby League is still pretty strong up here, so there's is a lot of young potential to tap into. Plenty of good players have come out of the bush around these areas. The proposed in-land rail to Melbourne is also going right through Toowoomba.
The Wagners group who built the airport have plenty of cash and have been in a bit of a tugg of war with another group in Ipswich that also want a team. This Ipswich mob have been talked about in relation to expansion. Ipswich is between Toowoomba and Brisbane. IMO too close to the Broncos and Titans. There is also plenty of Mining companies based in and around Toowoomba that obviously have plenty of dough.
The Toowoomba Clydesdale's used to be the feeder club for the Broncos but the Broncos neglected them in years gone by. I think Toowoomba is ripe for the pickings.
The big hurdle is the same with most proposed cities for expansion, thats the lack of a quality stadium.
I'm fairly certain it won't ever happen, but if push came to shove Toowoomba would be a good fit for an NRL club and the Wests Tigers could could keep their identity.
I've lived here for 10 years now and am still surprised to see how many Tigers supporters are already here.