Immortal blessing: Why Beetson backed Western Corridor NRL bid

The Western Corridor NRL bid is determined to bring rugby league Immortal Arthur Beetson's vision to fruition.

In the final years of his life, Beetson threw his support behind the bid and wrote the foreword to the bid document that was presented to former NRL CEO David Smith.

On Monday, NRL CEO Todd Greenberg said Brisbane was in "the box seat" to get a new team should the game expand in 2023.

Western Corridor NRL bid chairman Steve Johnson worked with Beetson in the late 2000s on establishing a bid – founded in the fast-growing Ipswich, Logan and Toowoomba regions – that would stand the test of time.

In the foreword Beetson, who was also aware of the significant playing numbers in the Western Corridor bid's catchment, said "the bid's vision and passion for our game and our kids is something I share".

"All too often I see boys taken from their home and parents care and uprooted to another city where the game becomes their parents and the focus of their lives," wrote Beetson, who died in 2011.

"Things other than talent decide if the boy will make it in the game and dreams lived or crushed.

"The Western Corridor bid will provide kids, in particular from rural areas like my home town of Roma, the chance to chase their dreams without having to leave home as boys."

Johnson said Beetson was "a visionary" who had learned plenty from his own experience at the Roosters, where he often put up players from Queensland like Justin Hodges in his own home.

"He said at the time that he did the best he could in what he understood to be a flawed system," Johnson told NRL.com.

"He came to the vision that there needed to be another club in Queensland because Queensland was under-represented and to stop the kids having to move south.

"As part of our bid we were going to run an Indigenous academy and run that under Arthur's banner to create a pathway for Indigenous kids based on his knowledge of his people, which we will still do if our bid is successful and involve another Indigenous visionary in Tony Currie."

The Western Corridor bid draws on the playing numbers from Toowoomba, Ipswich and Logan.

"We were flagged to start in 2015 and the numbers for our bid have only gotten better since then," Johnson said.

"Back in 2016, Brisbane had 11,355 registered players and the Western Corridor 15,733 and the game's planning is working on Brisbane having 13,054 registered players and the Western Corridor 19,075 by 2026.

"Redcliffe had only 2840 registered players and was forecasted to have 3452 by 2026. The forecasted Western Corridor growth in registered players was 3342 so our projected growth is almost the same as the total number of players at Redcliffe.

"Participants gives you two things, obviously playing strength being one.

"If you have 19,000 people playing in your patch exponentially you have 10 times that number who are aligned to those players. So that is 190,000 people to be your fans, buy your merchandise and come to your games.

"It is the biggest numbers in rugby league. Ipswich itself is the megastar of growth in rugby league in Australia.

"The other advantage of having rusted-on supporters is that like Newcastle you then get fans that stick with you through thick and thin."

The side would play games out of Suncorp Stadium and initially use North Ipswich Reserve as its training base.

"The Ipswich City Council has commissioned KPMG to do a study into the cost of building a stadium at North Ipswich Reserve that mirrors Redcliffe's and I have been part of the planning committee for that," Johnson said.

"They have asked what we need for the NRL side and they are taking that into account. If the 2032 Brisbane Olympics bid is successful [possibly as soon as 2021] they will play games out of North Ipswich Reserve and the Federal Government will commit funds."

The Brisbane Lions use a site in Ipswich as a training base that had been put aside for the Western Corridor NRL side when expansion was touted in 2015.

"We could have a conversation with sharing that facility in Springfield when there is more certainty around expansion,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who believes any successful bid in the greater Brisbane area would attract the necessary corporate support, said their bid was keen to talk to Wayne Bennett about his coaching plans beyond 2021.

He said Kevin Walters, Terry Matterson and Ben and Shane Walker would also be in the coaching conversation.

It is the ethos of the Western Corridor bid that most appealed to Beetson, as he revealed with some of the closing words of his foreword.

"With the game becoming more of a business and players 'stock in trade', it more than ever needs to keep some traditional values and the Western Corridor model will go a long way to keeping a balance between healthy business and healthy life," he wrote.