Much has been said about the NRL's controversial June 30 anti-tampering amnesty after one of the most frantic player trading months in years. The push is on once again to have the situation changed and the media are pushing as hard as they can for an end of season date.

The situation has been more public this year with the signings of Ruben Wiki and Steve Price by the Warriors, and the two month saga of Canberra's Joel Monaghan agonising over where he was playing next year, before settling with the Sydney Roosters.

The NRL and the media have said that the fans of Canberra and the Bulldogs have been the real victims in all of this, with particular reference to a young fan who has idolised Price and formed a bond with him in the past 6 months.

However, as a fan myself, I have a blunt message to my fellow fans decrying the fact their favourite players are leaving, or thinking about leaving their team... get over it.

Before State of Origin one, New South Wales coach Phil Gould implored referee Sean Hampstead to stop Queensland using "grapple tackles", the tactic of gathering the tackled player in almost a headlock to slow down the play the ball.

"Melbourne Storm do it all the time," he said, pointing to Queensland hooker Cameron Smith coming from the southern capital. "It's dangerous," he said.

State of Origin came and went, and while barely a crooked maroon elbow near a blue head could be seen, the saintly New South Wales forwards were gathering all and sundry in a vice-like grip. Queensland's players were rubbing their necks after tackles.

It's not easy being a rugby league fan these days. The game we dearly love, which has stoicly built itself back up from the devastating "civil war" of the mid 1990s, has for the past three months been dragged through the mud by a sorry but dominant minority of players.

Just three years ago, Broncos' veterans Gorden Tallis and Shane Webcke issued an open letter to their fellow players pleading with them to clean their acts up following recreational drug problems, an infamous on-field finger incident, and crowd violence.

Already in 2004 the sinister shroud of recreational drug use has lingered again, and off field crowd violence has erupted once more, and while the digital exploration of John Hopoate has not been repeated, an even more worrying issue of sexual harassment and degradation of women has stepped in to sink Rugby League's credibility as a family activity to an all time low.

If current trends continue, the Brisbane Broncos could break an undesirable record at full time of their round 14 clash with Parramatta in Sydney, and it's all about scoring.

It's been 41 games since the Broncos surpassed the magical 40-point barrier when they beat the Melbourne Storm 48-20 at Olympic Park in Melbourne way back in season 2002. With tonight's clash with Newcastle and two more consecutive home games against St George-Illawarra and Cronulla, the Broncos have an opportunity to avoid beating a record which has stood since 1991.

Back then, ironically also against Cronulla, the Broncos beat the Sharks 40-2 at Lang Park, their biggest ever win against the Shirelings. It ended a 44 game run since the Broncos had last hit 40. Amazingly, that too was against the Sharks at Lang Park in round 13 of 1989, coming home victorious to the tune of 42-10.

Since then the Broncos have eclipsed 40 points on a regular basis through the years since 1992 where the Broncos have failed to miss the finals. In fact, season 2003 was the first since their debut premiership in 1992 that they failed to reach 40 points even once.

The National Rugby League's decision to penalise the Brisbane Broncos two competition points for an illegal interchange is not just overkill, it's an abomination. The NRL today ignored all submissions made by the Broncos during a mammoth meeting last Thursday in upholding the threatened two-point penalty, and thus committed the NRL once more to an organisation where common sense is a dirty word.

The NRL have deducted points from clubs twice since the amalgamation of Super League and the ARL competitions in 1997. The first came in 2000 when the North Queensland Cowboys had two points deducted for having 14 men on the field. The second came in 2002 when the Bulldogs had all 37 points deducted for their blatant and contrived breach of the salary cap rules governing the game.

In comparison to both those incidents, the Broncos incident is not in the same league.