South Sydney CEO Shane Richardson has urged the NRL to do more to promote the game in Western Australia, convinced rugby league has a future in the AFL-mad city.
The Rabbitohs have been leading the way in increasing the profile of league in WA and will again take a home fixture to Perth later this year following the success of last season's fixture.
The Bunnies attracted over 15,000 fans when they hosted Melbourne at ME Bank Stadium last year and both teams will return to play a Round 16 fixture in June.
Richardson also revealed his club was hoping to bring two matches per season across the Nullabor in 2011 and 2012.
While the NRLs first attempt to establish a team in the West failed miserably with the Western Reds in the mid-1990s, the West Australian Rugby League is campaigning to get a Perth-based team back in the comp by 2013.
And Richardson believes more should be done to make that happen.
"I think we need to make sure that we arrange for our NRL fixtures to allow us to ... get out to places like the Pilbara," the Rabbitohs chief said.
"We also want to take our indigenous programs into the regional areas."
"We've proven we can do it now in Western Australia, we've proven that rugby league has an interest and there's a great opportunity to be able to expand that interest."
"Several things have got to happen; we need support."
"We've always wanted to play two games over here but we weren't able to because we haven't really got any support in doing that, so we had to do it all ourselves."
While the NRL and AFL have been fighting each other for supremacy in Sydney's west, Richardson claims both Fremantle and West Coast have been supportive of the Rabbitohs playing NRL games on their turf.
"This is not about a threat to the AFL and I've got to say we've had lots of discussions previously with Fremantle and West Coast and they've been nothing but supportive of ourselves over here," Richardson said.
"It's about giving an alternative to people who have an interest."
"You have a large population from the east coast that are supportive of rugby league. You also have a large population from England."
"We understand the value of putting rugby league into this area and trying to re-establish it after what happened in the past."
"We're over here to promote rugby league and give a genuine alternative for people who like the rugby game."
Meanwhile injured Rabbitohs back-rower Michael Crocker is confident his frustrating stint on the sidelines is almost over with the former Storm forward likely to return against the Sea Eagles in Round 8.
The 29-year-old has liked what he has seen from his team-mates and believes the acquisition players such as Sam Burgess and Dave Taylor will ensure a bright future for the Redfern-club.
"We've got a really good group of players now and our average age has dropped down, we're a very young team," Crocker said.
"You look at Melbourne, where they're at now, they've had their core group of players playing together for about 10 years."
"I think definitely if we can keep this group together for a long time we're going to be very successful."