That is the only conclusion that I can come up with regarding the latest supposed betting scandal plaguing rugby league.

If it has happened, it must be a bloody good one!

The story goes, according to a couple of publications, that two games involving the Manly Sea Eagles were targeted by alleged match-fixers last season.

According to the articles, six Manly players were paid around $50,000 to ensure they lost.

The alleged perpetrators include high-profile gambler Eddie Hayson. 

On one of the games, Hayson allegedly played a part in outlaying $700,000 on Manly to lose by more than eight points to the Rabbitohs in the round 16 match.

To me, having a bet on the Bunnies to win by more than eight points sounds fairly reasonable.

Why?

Because Manly had been given 7.5 points start on the bloody game.

Betting on this option also sounds reasonable to several betting agencies as well who have said that they didn’t recognise anything unusual about the games in question.

If it wasn’t for the papers asking questions, they wouldn’t be giving the game any extra attention to any other game.

And let’s face it, the betting agencies are exceptional when it comes to managing risk; It’s their bread and butter.

So where is the heat coming from? Is there a smoking gun?

Not yet.

The articles are full of speculation.

In fact, the only thing that we “know” at this stage is that the NSW Police are making enquiries. It hasn’t escalated into a full investigation as yet.

And now today, it is apparently Andrew Johns’ fault.

He was an assistant coach under Geoff Toovey at the time.

The only things that seem to link Johns with any of this seems to be that he is mates with Hayson.

Hayson is also mates with a lot of other people, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

Johns has a drug-taking past that was revealed years ago after he was arrested overseas for having a couple of ecstasy pills in his pocket.

And the coup de grace? He was at Manly at the time.

Case closed! If you join all the dots, they obviously end up in Joey’s lap.

Manly never had any issues before he got there, it must be his fault.

Give me a break.

The facts is that people know people, but that doesn’t mean they are all in cahoots.

Most of us have a mate who is on the dodgy side, but that doesn’t mean we’re all involved in what they are doing.

But, we live in a world where perception is reality, I’ve said this before in these pages, and I think this is where the papers are trying to create something from nothing.

It is no surprise that this has come along on the coat-tails of the story involving Corey Norman, James Segeyaro and Junior Paulo having dinner with a few people who have allegedly been involved in a few unsavoury things.

The Police have had a chat with the players and the NRL about it and essentially the message was ‘be aware of the company in which you keep’.

There wasn’t any suggestion that the players were up to anything, although Norman has a drug charge hanging over him as we speak, but the other two don’t have anything to answer for otherwise.

It was as simple as telling them ‘you don’t want to be seen with these guys as you don’t want to be roped into what they may be doing.’

To have this match-fixing story follow this up may just be coincidence, but without a whole lot of evidence to back up the claims, it’s difficult to take it seriously and see it as anything other than tabloid crap.

But it was nice to see that the NRL was straight on the front foot on this issue. The integrity of the game had been questioned so they had to be quick and act tough on the situation.

“Match fixers will be banned for life!” proclaimed NRL CEO Todd Greenberg.

Yep, fair enough.

But Todd, why is that so much more severe than rorting the salary cap?

Why weren’t you as hard on those at Parramatta?

Or the player managers who either had a hand in it or stayed silent and let them do it?

Or is that a different kind of integrity issue?

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the NRL’s moral compass.

And sometimes it’s difficult to work out what is real from what seems to be a buzzing little bee that is driving someone up the wall.

As Benedick says in Shakespeare’s play Much Ado about Nothing: “For man is a giddy thing and this is my conclusion.”

This article first appeared on TopBetta HERE