Wollongong people have not endured the natural disasters of their Steel City cousins up north. They don't have an extra hour of road between them and the big smoke. Sydney casts as big a shadow as Mount Kiera. If we keep quiet and get on with things, maybe the property prices won't go up so quickly. Shhhh. At home: Dragons players Josh Dugan and Benji Marshall at WIN Stadium. Credit:Robert Peet But even though the Dragons are based in Wollongong, the city's right – yeah, I'll use that word because they're a "joint venture" – to host games has been steadily eroded since the club's formation in 1999. The extent to which the NRL values the custom of Australia's 10th largest city has to be questioned. There seem to be absolutely no minimum number of games the governing body wants played there each year. And when it comes to finals matches, the Dragons are unequivocally deemed a Sydney team – a slap in the face to a region that gave us some of the greatest players of all time, including two Immortals. The NRL seems to take Wollongong for granted.

Now, the right game for the right venue is the right policy. Immortal duo: Graeme Langlands and Bob Fulton. But there is such a tangle of agreements and leases and ownership structures that achieving it seems almost impossible. And because the Dragons rely on headquarters for money, they have to do what headquarters tells them to. There are not nine Sydney clubs. There are eight and a half. Somehow, one of the eight – Penrith – have managed to sidestep this process requiring 65 games each season to be played at Pirtek Stadium, Allianz Stadium and ANZ Stadium. Michael Chammas reports this is because "the state government has highlighted the potential for a new stadium in greater western Sydney". Perhaps we may one day have a new stadium in Greater Western Sydney but how does that preclude Penrith from having to join the party in the meantime? That's quite a Houdini act on their part.

No doubt one day "Illawarra" as a suffix will go the same way as "Warringah" and "Bankstown". The reasons for it will fade into history. For some, that happened almost immediately the merger occurred. But will this process be accelerated by the team no longer playing there? For those of us still breathing, who remember Owen Saunders, Scott Greenland and Chris Macklin-Shaw, maybe it's time to put down our beers, get up off our beach towels, leave the hang glider in the garage and kick up a bit of a stink. Podcast here Book here