An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
A lack of parity exists between the Western Suburbs Magpies and Balmain Tigers in the joint venture. This lack of parity exists in deed…
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A lack of parity exists between the Western Suburbs Magpies and Balmain Tigers in the joint venture. This lack of parity exists in deed…
Campbelltown is only 35 kilometres from the heart of Sydney as the crow flies – yet growing up there in my formative years in…
😂 That’s fine. As a long-suffering Magpie fan who tried hard for to adjust to supporting an invasive non-native species, I would love to see the Tigers pack their bags, tuck their tails between their legs and go and leech off some other club. If this had been a marriage, the case would have been made long ago that one party to it was inflicting financial abuse upon the other.
The Magpies should be brought back, based in Campbelltown and perhaps rebadged as the Macarthur Magpies. The Tigers, assuming they would be shunned by other clubs for a new JV deal, could then be offered up to potential new owners for shipping out to another state.
No more faith to keep: Wests Tigers fans deserve better
A couple of years ago I was given the rounds for writing similsr opinion pieces here.
What a difference a couple of years mskes.
This was an incredible read with very real and deep insight into the issues.
The fan and media pressure needs to continue. Though miracles happen, it would indeed be a miracle for an internal review to find that the reviewers are a major part of the problem.
Sixteen years of travesty: Wests Tigers and the miracle premiership that solved nothing
“Yet all of a sudden the knives are out for coach Michael Maguire… I think the absolute worst thing the Campbelltown-based joint venture club could do right now is scapegoat their coach when it is so clear that their issues run so much deeper.”
Mr. Gore, you’re the preppy dude who called Tommy R a “thug”? You should look words up before (mis)using them.
Now you claim WT are based in Campbelltown? Oh the irony – because NOT being based in Campbelltown is the very reason they are crap.
Every other team has a home base – a community they belong to. But not this rabble. They have 4 home bases and and no community.
Give the Macarthur region a team that actually wants to be there (in complete contrast to this rabble), and provide a simple but comprehensive juniors pathway and you would start to see success. 2005 was an anomaly brought about because at that time, there were in fact still ties to the south west via Sheens and a number of the players. Since then, all we have seen is the freezing out of the Magpie and the embrace of all things Tigger and Campbelltown left to the AFL and A League to share the spoils.
In the meantime, it won’t matter who the coach or what players they buy. Nothing will fix the dysfunction until they plant roots in one spot.
If you agree, please add your name to the petition https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/Rick_Wayde_Bring_Back_the_Magpies_to_the_NRL/?preview=live
NRL not takes: Four stupid current 'hot takes' that are just plain wrong
Dib was on the radar because he was already on the undercard. We don’t know what (if any) efforts were made to find a legit welter to step in though, before the call was made for Dib.
I fear you are both right about it being a mismatch of potentially dire proportions, but still don’t blame Dib at all for grabbing his chance. He was already in training anyway for his undercard bout. As he himself hinted, it’s all about risk vs reward. And we all know anything can happen in a boxing ring. Good luck to him. I hope he not only gets through unscathed, but causes the upset of the century.
Why Khan was given the bout in the first place – with anyone – is another matter.
Billy Dib fighting Amir Khan is a disgrace
So in ten years, the first ten years of WT will be wiped as not counting – and that will include their sole premiership. How arbitrary and convenient your take on history is.
It is indeed my opinion – based on a body of facts. infrastructure, juniors, ISP, growth estimates and that thing you hate called history all point to Macarthur being deserving of a team. The Bulldogs can have Liverpool.
So you believe the Wests side of the JV should continue to lug around the dead Tiger even in a move back to Campbelltown? LOL .
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
No. I left two spots open for the best two bids.
That said, I don’t think the harbor is that big an obstacle to get t a city game. For that matter, the Central Coast isn’t such a bad drive either.
But at this point in time, I think the teams to go or be moved are between Cronulla, Wests Tigers (if not split) , Balmain and Wests (if they are split, St George and Manly.
That leaves the only “CBD” teams as Souths, Roosters and possibly Balmain or Balmain in a joint venture – not necessarily with Wests. Those teams between the CBD and Bankstown would be Western Suburbs teams and those beyond Babkstown would be Greater Wests teams. The numbers in the latter can be justified by the size of the juniors and the RL strongholds they have been.
The North Shore does not have that strong base and tradition that the Greater West has.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
They were not Australian Bird of the Year in 2017. Magpies are beautiful – and smart.
The brand argument is crap.
If you are given a choice between a dead tiger and… nothing… most will accept the dead tiger.
Give Macarthur a choice between a part time tiger and a full time magpie and see how well the tiger brand stands up.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
Thanks for the kind words, Papi.
I agree with all you say. The change has to coincide with other changes to reduce Sydney teams and add teams for expansion. I addressed this in a reply to someone else.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
Thanks for the comments. Noted demographers, Jock Collins and Scott Poynting Make a distinction between the Western Suburbs and the Greater West and that the terms cannot be used interchangeably (as they sometimes are). They say the Western Suburbs can be found between the Greater West and the CBD with Auburn and Bankstown being the buffer zones between the two. The case they make is that the major centers of the Greater West were independently established well before the urban sprawl created the Western Suburbs.
They also point out that Western Suburbs Rugby League team made an error of judgment in not renaming themselves the Macarthur Magpies. Between the lines, they are suggesting that the name change would have separated them from the Western Suburbs (as defined here) , cemented the brand in Macarthur and therefore having no need to eventually join Balmain.
Source: The Other Sydney: Communities, Identities and Inequalities in Western Sydney p 153.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
So every time I come here, I should leave an article or make a comment. Yeah, right.
You are looking at two decades of a brand name to make your case. And you don’t care about any history except those two decades – which you cling to like a lift raft.
We all have rear view mirrors for a reason.
And one salient fact remains: Macarthur deserves its own team.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
I’ve already said – get an independent survey commissioned in the Macarthur region of a good sized sample of the population ask one question: Would you prefer a part-time team based in the inner-city playing 3 games a year here or a full-time team based at Campbelltown?
We’ll see how well the tiger brand stands up when a real choose is presented. People out there get behind the Tiger only because there is no other option except to give up league altogether. It’s called a Hobson’s Choice. You might want to look it up for future reference.
There is no corporate interest out there? Really? Are you sure you aren’t just making up any old arguments that suit you without any real facts at your disposal?
I think you are doing exactly that.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
No. At the time of the jv that was exactly the situation.
The difference is that there was no offer by the league to bail the club out unless they accepted the JV deal. That is blackmail. Yet the League saw no issue in baling Balmain out post Joint Venture.
I have no problem with a 20 team play each other once comp. Anything is preferable to the current situation of plating some teams once and some twice. That is farcical imho.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
I forgot to answer the “why now” part.
Because of the timing of Balmain going belly up and the announcement of possible expansion and other changes for 2022. To get a Macarthur side in for that season, the lobbying and planning needs to start now. The only alternative is to watch the slow extinction of the magpie at every level of the game and the end of Macarthur as a stronghold of league.
If I have not addressed this elsewhere… I may as well do it here.
The poor crowds at Campbelltowm or not a sign of disinterest in League, It is a sign of disinterest in continuing to be treated to low quality games and a team that is based for the most part in the inner-city. The people of Campbelltown are not mugs. They know that WT have no appetite or love for the area. GIve them their own team. Then you will see the crowds again.
Lobby for the survey question to be asked of a good sized sample of Macarthur residents and tell me how much brand loyalty there is when people are given a real choice – because the only choice they have at the moment is a part-time team or nothing. That sort of choice only gets brand loyalty by default.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
Hello BA. The hallmark of propaganda is mixing truth with lies. Unless you have a tracker on my computer, you have, in round figures, the same number of clues about how often I come here as you do about this situation; zero.
More propaganda: I never said “everyone” calls the team “Balmain”.
Going forward with a new team called Macarthur Magpies is going backwards in your perverse view. More propaganda.
No point in taking away 2 decades of building a brand? How about 8 decades of the Magpie brand down the gurgler without a second thought by the PTB?
We all stand on the shoulders of those who made what we have and take for granted. Among the shoulders that the League stands on are the Foundation clubs, the teams that are depicted in the GF trophy and… the first team in RL to adopt and use a mascot Want to take a guess at who that was? Western Suburbs? Why yes. Yes it was. And if they hadn’t done that, there may never have been a Tiger. Or an Eel. Or freakin Dragon. or anything else.
Your last point is incredibly inept. Not asking for a team for “all” of Western Sydney – only for the Macarthur region. The rest of the west is amply represented by the Eels, Bulldogs and Penrith.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
There are three issues that have a fair bit of crossover.
1. The treatment of the Wests half pf the joint venture.
2. The financially belly-up Tigers
3. That the Macarthur region is being used to prop up inner city teams at the expense of having their own team.
Things came to a head among many Magpies supporters when number two hit the fan. And we all know what happens when a number 2 hits the fan. The reactionaries like your first responder come out of the woodwork to try and shut down any open conversations.
Let’s make the dominant issue the fact that Macarthur deserves to have it’s own team, not a part-time inner=city side reluctantly playing there three times a year.
The question then is, not what my preference is, but the best way to make that happen.
The NRL has said it won’t bail any more teams out, so the options for a Macarthur side are
( a ) Wests Tigers relocate to Campbelltown.
( b ) The Joint Venture remains, but is confined to the inner-city and a new Macarthur franchise is established.
( c ) The joint venture is broken up and a Perth or some other interstate syndicate relocates the Balmain Tigers – otherwise it is extinction for them – and the Wests half moves to Campbelltown.
( d ) A Balmain-Newtown merger or joint venture.
What to do with the Sydney clubs?
The only three inner-city clubs that should remain are Sydney City, Souths and either Wests Tigers, or a new joint Balmain-Newtown team.
Cronulla to Perth, Manly to Central Coast, St George to Wollongong. The Bulldogs are the hard ones. But they aren’t really inner-city. Nor is Parramatta,
So you would end up with 3 inner-city teams + the Bulldogs, Parramatta, Penrith, and Macarthur – a total of 7 sides for the inner-city, west and greater west. I don’t think that is unreasonable for the heartland of the game.
Other teams starting at 2022:
Central Coast
Newcastle
Illawarra
Broncos
New Brisbane franchise
Gold Coast
Nth Qld
Melbourne
Perth
Aukland (I think NZ should be only used for the national side)
I would push for all of the above and throw open submissions for entry of two more teams from Aost, NZ, the islands, PNG or South Africa.
I would then split into two conferences ala NFL with the winner of each playing in the GF.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
No problems. Good comments anyway and I agree, fwiw.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
I believe it had a lot to do with the fact that Wests had already been forced to share it’s juniors with Balmain.
That’s probably still part of the issue now.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
Glad to see someone here recalls Mark the Magpie. He set the benchmark for all mascots to follow.
I would love to see a new Macarthur Magpies – led out by Mac the Magpie.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
My comment was not about number of games (although – yes, that is also an issue). It was about the quality of the games played there.
Give the people of Macarthur their own team and watch the crowds come back.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
I admire your passion, and I’m incensed your enquiry to the club was brushed off so rudely.
Okay, I see the source of the confusion now. What I posted for publication was “This letter is in response to the polite brush-off given to the inquiry.”
The Roar changed that to read, “This letter is in response to the polite brush-off given to an inquiry I made of the club.”
Again – my fault. I should have been clearer in the original text that the inquiry was not mine and had been made to the NRL (as opposed to the club).
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
I should have been clearer (though not that it matters too much). The inquiry was not to the club, it was to the NRL and it was not by me – it was passed on to me to look at ways to respond to it.
I don’t believe there is a case for the return of Newtown or Norths because of the “too many Sydney teams” argument – an argument that does have legs in my opinion, in an expansionist world. That argument also holds true of the Wests Tigers while ever that are a predominately inner-city team. But like I said, if the club and the NRL want to keep the team – make it a full-time inner-city one and let – even encourage – the Macarthur region to get a proposal together for a new franchise.
On the the branding – get the NRL or a media outlet to do the suggested polling about what locals would prefer – a part-time inner-city team named Tigers or a full-time local team named Magpies and we will find out how much loyalty there is to the current branding. If more than 25% opt for the Tigers, I’ll wave the white flag.
An open letter to the Wests Tigers and the NRL
“Well one of the old magpie loonies learnt how to use a laptop – and they say the education system is failing us. Sadly it gets worse from thier [sic]” No, they are right. It is failing us, as evidenced by your spelling and grammar. Went to a Private School, did we, cob?
“Lets [sic] look at some real live facts”
Oh yes, please, Mr. BoonBoon sir!
“Campbelltown crowds over the years have averaged 9362, with last year a massive 9945 so not much off the long term average despite this boom in population.”
To quote Benjamin Disraeli (look him up, if you can work out how) “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” Statistics can be used to make any argument, especially if stripped of context. The context here is ( a ) the people of Campbelltown are well aware that this is not their team, and that the team itself treats it like an away game. They also get only a small number of games there, usually at times of the year that are not crucial, and not against against opposition that might actually help boost the crowd.
Give the area it’s own team with the name Macarthur and the crowds will flock back to the games.
As for this Wests Tigers was/is just a rebadged Balmain – the number of games have always been equally been [sic] shared between the clubs, the clubs [sic] training centre is at the origional [sic] home of the Wests Magpies, the jersey has always had a Magpie on it but never a Balmain logo, extra games such a trials have always been predominatley [sic] at Campbelltown and Camden much closer to Magpies world then Balmain, Wests are now the majority owners but it is Wests Ashfield (which has both Tigers and Magpies logo’s adorning it) as Cambelltown stopped putting in money well before Balmain did.
Here are the facts about why Wests Campbelltown stopped kicking in.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/why-the-western-suburbs-magpies-are-saving-the-balmain-tigers-20160406-gnzbyc.html?fbclid=IwAR2HymU46pLXXaG2Qlrhpoex37u5fOl3GIYAnwmUOFzioxZ_wqB6JoVlKQI
The Magpie logo: you need a guided tour and a compass to find it. And the tiger is splattered all over the merch. No sign of a magpie.
As for rest of your dribble (wipe your damn chin, please!), the team is NEVER referred to as Wests – always “The Tigers”, and sometimes as Balmain… and whenever they play at Leichhardt, those idiot commentators fall over themselves to see who is going to be the first to say how great it is to be the spiritual home of the Tigers… blagh….
“Now for this population thing – Yes the population of Campbelltown is booming so that by 2036 the Cambelltown Council will still be smaller then the Inner West Council. What the inner west has going for it is that it is still close to many other council areas so the overall population will still be massively more then those within 15-20mins of Cambelltown which is a long way from almost everyone else other then Cambelltown. Also the growing population is from migration and migration alone with more people from Australia leaving Cambelltown then moving too it which is fine in itself but the game and definatly [sic] the Magpies have never shown much ability to engage migrant communities other then by the Wests Tigers.”
Ah huh. Sorry, but I have to guess what you are trying to say here. Is English YOUR second language? If you are really saying what it looks like you are saying, you are probably beyond arguing with, reaching out to, or attempting to educate.
So I will ignore the racial BS factor you’ve brought into it, and which could not possibly be more wrong on so many levels — I’ll just remind you that the inner city has limited juniors – unlike Macarthur. In fact, the whole reason Balmain and Wests were forced into this shotgun wedding was because Balmain was so poorly served by junior talent, we were forced to share ours with them long before the Joint Venture.
Frankly I don’t know why your post was even left up. Your “facts” are anything but, and your ad hom couldn’t be more obvious. If I had called a tosser like you a “loony” and cast asparagus at your edjucashun, I’m pretty sure my ass would have been modded right out of here.
Rugby league and the battle for hearts and minds in the west
Wests was Madge’s second preference. He was also Broncos second preference.
So what did we end up with? Someone who rates Wests behind Broncos and who Broncos rate behind Seibold.
That does not inspire confidence an any front – least of all his ability to stay the distance.
Rugby league and the battle for hearts and minds in the west
In principle, I agree. It doesn’t matter what they are called. But in practical terms, the Magpies already have a strong club right at the ground and many juniors still fly the flag as Magpies. Plus alliteration always has strong marketing potential. The Macarthur Magpies is a marketing winner.
No more faith to keep: Wests Tigers fans deserve better