Secret survey results revealed fans considered this to be one of the "most successful seasons" on record.

In the wake of the Mitchell Pearce scandal, the Parramatta salary cap scandal and, in the past week, the Andrew Fifita scandal, it could not have come at a better time.

Finally, some clear air right on the eve of the finals series … then the phone rang.

It was the NSW Police Organised Crime Squad informing them it had set up Strike Force Nuralda to investigate match-fixing, although it provided no more details than that.

Soon afterwards police released a statement, and it was the last line that served as the kidney punch: "The investigation is expected to be protracted, with dozens of players, officials and members of the community expected to be interviewed in the coming months."

The feeling among many at the NRL since match-fixing suspicions were first raised in June about three matches – all involving Manly – was that the matter would come to nothing.

While not discounting the seriousness of the claims, and certainly the figures involved, proving games were fixed or manipulated would be difficult.

Former Eels star Kieran Foran and his punting mate, the controversial former brothel-owner Eddie Hayson, have publicly slammed suggestions they were involved in any wrongdoing.

In my limited dealings with Hayson, he has sworn black and blue it was impossible to fix matches. Too many players needed to pull off the fix, too easy to trace the money, too easy to get caught.

"Nothing!" screamed Hayson down the phone to Channel Nine's Danny Weidler on Wednesday afternoon when asked if Strike Force Nuralda would find any wrongdoing on his behalf.

He added he hoped "300 detectives" were used, so they could clear the names of those implicated.

Despite this, there have been growing concerns in recent months about the relationship between players and underworld figures – especially bikie gangs – and the manipulation of games.

One player I've spoken to talks of widespread gambling on matches, and most of that money is placed with overseas-based gambling agencies, mostly in Asia.

He suspects match-fixing exists well beyond the three NRL matches in question, and well beyond the NRL.

These types of suspicion are going to grow legs in the next six to 12 months, as the NSW Crime Commission applies the blowtorch to a code that is about to have its resilience again tested.

Many of us recall the "protracted" police investigation in 2010 and 2011, when fingers were pointed at all manner of people – namely the late Ryan Tandy, former player John Elias and leading player manager Sam Ayoub – over a betting plunge from a Bulldogs-Cowboys match in Townsville.

In the wash-up to all that, at the end of two years of suspicion and innuendo and grainy CCTV images of disguised punters at TABs across the city, only Tandy was punished – and they hardly threw the book at him.

A NSW court fined him $4000 and placed him on a 12-month good-behaviour bond for "significant organisation and … a significant level of criminality" in dishonestly attempting to obtain a financial advantage.

He was later handed a six-month, non-custodial sentence for lying at a NSW Crime Commission hearing.

Later that year the NSW government ushered in new laws that would see those found guilty of match-fixing jailed for 10 years.

That might weigh heavily over the conga line of players and officials set to be interviewed by the Crime Commission in coming weeks and months.

Meanwhile, the game will endure, like it always does.

On Monday morning I asked NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg if he was looking forward to the finals series. His first six months in the job have been torrid, as the game lurches from scandal to scandal.

"It's been everything I thought it would be and more," he smiled. "I've been around long enough to realise there are always issues through the year that capture headlines. When it comes down to the back end of the season, it's all about the footy."

Yeah, right. When was it ever just about the footy?