exactly crewmeal
SRB had every chance to forge links with Virgin Oz to tie up at LAX -
Voz have a great service to SYD, MEL, BNE
if Virgin Oz had chosen to serve DXB iso AUH then both them and VS would have competed with EK/QF head on - but hey that's what VS said they were always good at - meeting the competitor head on.
same with VS via JNB - head on with SAA to Perth but its a busy route and also one of the quickest to Oz with a good connection at JNB or possibly Voz could have offered MEL or even SYD
going via HKG was always seen as a bit of the long way round imho -
as another poster mentioned here boardroom battles between VS and Voz sealed the fate of non-alliances