It will surprise no-one when Strike Force Nuralda, the NSW police investigation into match-fixing in rugby league, discovers that criminal gangs have started issuing breach notices to their members to warn them against consorting with footballers. No self-respecting evil genius can afford to be seen with an NRL player now.
So it's farewell to Jamie Lyon, Benji Marshall and Parramatta Stadium: proof of the great game's ongoing power to mint people and places with personality.
History belongs to those who keep turning up, and durability is its own measure of success.
The rugby league season has been a conduit for a roaming moral vigilantism; a witch-hunt for bad people, from Mitchell Pearce to Corey Norman.
Now all that midseason flim-flam is over, rugby league fans can knuckle down to the serious business of cheering for whichever team offends them least.
Persisting with a dead Origin game exposes the hypocrisy of concerns for 'player welfare'
The Year of The Hodkinson feels not only like something that didn't happen, but something that couldn't have happened.
But at least he made the NFL, didn't he? Or you could say, the whole thing was a marketing scam to suck in all of us who wanted to believe the best of people.
The best rugby league team in the world is not Australia, or New Zealand. It's Queensland. They know it, you know it. Mal knows it. Question is: How can he change it?
The further you were from the game, the better last year's day-night Test match was.
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