Melbourne has a smug sense of entitlement. Where we as a rugby state and community fought, rallied, protested, explored alternative and innovative funding options, secured sponsorship, took legal action did everything we could to survive...well Melbourne did as you say, sweet FA as can be said for the rest of the Australian clubs and RUPA. "Thank God it wasn't us..oh well onwards and upwards". A bigger display of cowardice you won't see by a sport!
Ok guys, can you stop with all this "Melbourne doesn't like rugby", "there is no passion in Melbourne". It is pure trolling. Yes, the Melbourne rugby public did not get heavily engaged into the process because it wasn't necessary. Clearly a lot of the discussions happened in private between Cox, the VRU and other rugby supporters in Australia.
And realistically, your crowds were shit. Our crowds were also shit but at a roughly comparable level and we sucked bad which pulled away crowds. If Perth was demonstrating the passion that exists for rugby by crowds of 15,000-20,000 attending every game then maybe you'd have a point. I understand the frustration. It sucks. But take it out on the ARU please ...
Really, it is now all about how do we bring the Force back. Twiggy is doing an awesome job so far in supporting WA rugby but also trying to work in partnership with the ARU and I think that this will have a much better long term impact on the future of rugby in Australia and Western Australia than challenging the ARU outright (as much as I would like to see that)
Hopefully either the Sunwolves will bugger off in 2019 or one of the other South African teams will move north and the Force can rejoin then. If not then in the next broadcast arrangements or in the replacement for SuperRugby. And with some extra funding from Twiggy, we can bring back some of the strong super rugby players just below the big top up level and be in a much better place. Obviously it would be better if Twiggy had come in last year to do the same but we are where we are.