I suppose we should have seen the writing on the wall nine days ago when my colleague at Rugby League Week, Matt Logue, wrote a yarn quoting Benji Marshall, Brett Kimmorley, Darren Lockyer, Petero Civoniceva and others discussing all the NRL's ills.

The Storm salary cap scandal - they cheated, they got caught - was always going to give a free kick to everyone with a gripe about the way the game is run. Not of the football. Of Gallop's gonads.

And so on Friday we have the unedifying spectacle of the morning dawning on a new representative season and all we have on the front of the Daily Telegraph is a write-off (that's newspaper talk for a short summation of a story) about how 70 per cent of fans think league players are greedy.

The NRL put out a media release the other day pointing out that rugby league gives 24 per cent of its total revenue to its players, compared to 19 per cent in the AFL.

League just has less total revenue.

Now the reasons for this are well known. Rugby league does not get enough for its television rights. News Limited's conflict of interest probably has something to do with this - although the free-to-air rights are much further below their perceived value than the pay TV deal which sees News effectively negotiating with itself.

But guys, News Limited is getting out of rugby league! There is an independent commission coming, with a handover date in November! The television rights deal is up soon! Weekends off for rep games, a shorter season, bigger club grants - all round the corner! Why are you bleating now?

The only reason is because in a crisis, people become emboldened to say things they would not even dream of uttering otherwise. It's like the chaos provides them with cover, excludes them from recriminations. Or maybe a more apt comparison is looting during a natural disaster.

I was really concerned about the future of rugby league when Sonny Bill Williams snuck off. Equally mortified when we lost Mark Gasnier.

But you know what? The NRL didn't just fail to feel the hit. It prospered. Lote Tuquri and Wendell Sailor and Mat Rogers came back.

And now we stand on the edge of a new era and a bunch of - not greedy but cynically opportunistic - people want to bluff us into laying waste a salary cap that gave us eight premiers in 12 years without the help of a draft.

It's a cheap populist trick to criticise movie stars, politicians and athletes in the tabloid press by appealing to the jealousies of readers who earn less. That's not the point - capitalism is about supply and demand and there is more demand for Hayne than there is for a boilermaker at Wiley Park.

It's a fact of life.

But Jarryd misses the point, too - because quite frankly there is not as much demand for him as he thinks there is.

I hope criticism over a correct decision does not bludgeon NRL management into making a wrong one. No changes made to the cap in the months ahead should in any way affect the balance of power between the clubs.

In the meantime, I really don't care if half the Australian team taking the field Friday night ends up playing AFL, rugby union, bocce or Bhutan Tiddly Winks Super League in the near future.

Off you go.

As a game, if we hold our nerve during this period, we'll have something they'll regret leaving for the rest of their lives.