If former Queensland premier Peter Beattie wishes to woo Sydney clubs to support him as the incoming chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, he ignored local politics when he recently talked up expansion.

Fifteen of the NRL's 16 clubs posted a loss last year, if grants from the 10 clubs with licensed club backing and others reliant on benefactors are excluded from total revenue. Seven of the clubs depending on poker machine income are in Sydney, where teams would presumably be culled if expansion is to occur. Sydney clubs, except Wests Tigers, are now demonstrating a rare unity, opting to vote as a bloc at a recent phone hook-up to appoint two club delegates to a new 10-person ARLC.

While Beattie, who now lives in Balmain, merely needs the votes of the independent commissioners of the ARLC to be elected chairman, he has indicated he would prefer the NRL clubs to support him.

Based on the hostility expressed by some Sydney club powerbrokers to Beattie's "if we stagnate, we die" cry in a recent interview, he will need to reinforce the message that expansion will only occur well after the current broadcasting deal expires.