Seriously, you have no idea. St Clair in the Penrith district would literally have more kids in their club than the entire comp at Souths.St Marys have 2 rego days each year, week 1 is for returning players, week 2 is for new rego's. In many teams there are no vacancies at all before rego's are accepted in week 2.
Most clubs out west charge a token rego fee and provide socks,shorts,jumper and in many cases track suits or fleecy jackets as part of the deal. How are Penrith or Parra going to compete with that?
AFL is spending MILLIONS on juniors in the west. In the Eastern Suburbs AFL presence cannot be compared to the effort and resources being employed in the west.
You cannot compare the challenges the west faces to build a club with the challenge of Easts & Randwick to maintain what they have always had.
Given the demographic of the East & the West, who has the greater percentage of dads & grandads who actually played Rugby and would therefore be more likely to encourage junior down the Rugby path.