Rugby league hasn't had the smoothest of off-seasons, mainly due to the oft-lamented fact that rugby league, as a sport, is full of rugby league players.
The bumpy off-field road that the self-styled Greatest Game of All has been traversing though, means the relief in the leaguie realm will be palpable that Thursday Night Football (Nine in Sydney, Gem in Melbourne, 7.30pm) is back. Finally, we can all take a deep breath, put behind us all the unedifying drug scandals, financial wobbles, unseemly public behaviour and avaricious contract negotiations, and return to the pure essence of what rugby league is all about: muscular men hurling themselves angrily at each other.
I'm a league fanatic from way back: I appreciate the skills, the spectacular athleticism and subtle ball-play that light up the NRL every week of the season.
But deep down, in its heart of hearts, rugby league has built its edifice around a solid core of violent collisions. The desire to run as fast as you can into other people's bodies is the engine of the NRL, from the elite athletes risking career-ending injury with every carry for big salaries, down to the little lads with big dreams down the local park, who tuck that ball under their arms and set sail for the tryline out of nothing more than the innocent joy of crashing into another little lad.
No matter what hype, hyperbole and ongoing court proceedings swirl around this opening round, it's wise to remember that it's all about that innocent joy.
And of course, rugby league is the most telegenic of the football codes, lacking the AFL's elongated canvas, rugby union's opaque rules, or soccer's lack of violence.
The Thursday night game itself is the South Sydney Rabbitohs – named after the most popular rodent, and most popular exclamation, in Redfern – versus the Brisbane Broncos – named after the wild horses that roam the streets of Brisbane.
Souths, as reigning premiers, will be supremely confident that their star-spangled line-up, featuring luminaries the likes of Greg Inglis, Adam Reynolds and Issac Luke, can steamroller the Broncos, who have fallen on lean times of late and now look with wistful longing towards the old days of Langer, Lockyer, Walters and the other Walters.
Brisbane will be hoping to capitalise on the complacency that often comes with a team knowing it's the best in the world. But as always, the important thing is not who wins or loses, but who hits who the hardest.
Those of a more sedate turn of mind may prefer Gogglebox Australia (Ten, 9pm), the show where the medium becomes the message, the watchers become the watched, and we all become transfixed by people who in many ways are just like us, except that they get to be on TV, while our own hilarious and insightful comments about I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, go sadly unheard.
