“We’re essential!” V’landys essentially replied. Right now, that depends on where you are standing. It depends on whether you are the chairman of the game, or a player, or a coach — or the small business owner who is about to lose his or her livelihood. On Sunday night, as Parramatta and the Titans battled away before banks of empty seats — and a strategically placed mannequin — on the Gold Coast, the show was still going on and on and on. For how much longer, though? How much longer will rugby league’s working-class supporter base keep listening to instructions from Morrison, as well as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, as well as chief medical officers and many others, to self-isolate, to shut it down, to not go to work, to wear masks, to possibly lose your job, to wash your bloody hands, while professional footy players continue with apparent immunity on chartered flights up and down the eastern seaboard?

The AFL announcement shocked the NRL, putting enormous pressure on V’landys and Greenberg to close down the competition straight away. A decision is likely on Monday, according to NRL sources, but it would not surprise if that decision was to keep playing. The show must go on, says ARLC chairman Peter V'landys. Credit:Edwina Pickles Privately, there’s an acknowledgment that it might be taken out of their hands, with federal and state authorities placing further restrictions on our day-to-day lives as we attempt to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nobody should underestimate the gravity of what’s on the line: sustaining the economic viability of a sport that feeds a lot of mouths, and not just overpaid footballers, balanced with the greater need to stop a killer virus from spreading like wildfire.

A few weeks ago, V’landys was on the verge of edging Greenberg out the door as a power struggle between the pair came to a head. Now, they are shoulder to shoulder as they cling onto every last hope of the competition continuing, for at least another round, or at least until April 1 when the next quarterly payment from the broadcasters drops. Interestingly, Greenberg has been forced into a passive role as V’landys takes a scattergun approach with his public comments. On Sunday night, the chairman flagged players taking pay cuts — even though they had been mentioned just a week ago as a “last resort”. Even though the competition is still being played when almost every other sport has stopped. The public statements are confusing.

In the past week a whole range of spooky scenarios have been painted, from the competition running out of money in three months, then six weeks, then maybe even less than that. Loading The game had $145 million in the coffers, then it was $70 million, then even less than that. Make no mistake: V’landys is the right man to have in rugby league’s corner right now. Heaven forbid his predecessors, Peter Beattie and John Grant, were at the helm in the time of such crisis. But in aggressively playing on in the manner he is, he risks disenfranchising a whole stack of supporters who have more to lose than something to watch in their leisure time.