Just when it seems the dust has settled on one NRL scandal, another rears its ugly head.
This time last year, the launch of the competition was overshadowed by drugs charges facing Newcastle Knights pair Danny Wicks and Chris Houston. A year earlier it was the frontman of the NRL television campaign, Manly's Brett Stewart, being charged with sexual assault and suspended from playing for drunkenness.
And now, just when it appeared Aussie Rules players had assumed the mantle of Australian sport's buffoons, more problems have emerged to have Gallop considering changing his phone number.
The betting scandal which erupted towards the end of last year involving Canterbury Bulldogs forward Ryan Tandy has expanded in the last week to see well-known league identities, including a players' agent, charged with attempting to defraud betting agencies.
It doesn't end there. Last season's Dally M winner, the award for the best player in the competition, Todd Carney has been fined $A10,000 ($NZ13,710) and ordered to undergo alcohol counselling by the NRL after he was charged with drink-driving.
And now, the player chosen to be the face of this season's campaign, New Zealand test captain and Wests Tigers star Benji Marshall, has been charged with assault after an early morning fracas outside a burger joint.
It wasn't meant to be this way.
The NRL had staked the game's image on the clean-cut Marshall, who ironically had been living up to that earlier that night as host of a child cancer fundraiser, hoping to avoid the off-field embarrassments that have hamstrung the competition in recent years.
Marshall was only too aware of the "curse" that came with being the face of rugby league, telling reporters at the season launch: "I've had a pretty clean image and I want to keep it that way."
While Marshall has said he will vigorously defend the charge, the damage has been done - and that image, and, invariably the image of rugby league, has been tarnished once again.
Despite all his worries, at least Gallop can count on no rorting of the salary cap this year.
Melbourne's heavy punishment last season has surely dissuaded any other club from pushing the financial envelope -- after the Storm were caught stuffing it full of cash and gifts.
Cash is one area where the NRL has had to play second fiddle to the AFL and Gallop will be hoping a new television deal will fill the coffers enough to prevent stars following Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau to play aerial ping pong.
With so much happening on the periphery it is easy to forget that this not is some badly scripted soap, but a professional sporting competition.
On the field, many eyes will be on Marshall's international coach, Stephen Kearney, as he steps into the hot seat at Parramatta.
Kearney, who spent five years as apprentice to Melbourne supremo Craig Bellamy, faces a challenge harnessing the attacking brilliance of the Eels into a team with the steel and discipline necessary to secure the premiership.
He will be best advised to keep the Eels board on side which has a history of treating their coaches shabbily.
Two former Eels, Krisnan Inu and Feleti Mateo, have joined the New Zealand Warriors and it will be up to coach Ivan Cleary to get the best out of his potential matchwinners.
They look to have recruited well, with the versatile Shaun Berrigan an astute addition to a side who exited the playoffs in the first round last year.
Kearney's former team, the Storm, are in a rebuilding mode after being shorn of key players in the wake of the salary cap rort.
Out have gone Greg Inglis, Ryan Hoffman, Jeff Lima, Brett White and Brett Finch, but the intimidating Adam Blair remains as do Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and livewire Billy Slater.
Elsewhere, defending champions St George Illawarra are heavily fancied to repeat their exploits of 2010 despite the uncertainty surrounding the future of master coach, and occasional Kiwis assistant, Wayne Bennett.
Premiership winner Jeremy Smith has left the Dragons to join the Cronulla Sharks, who are tipped by many to pick up the wooden spoon.
Gallop, and the NRL, are undoubtedly hoping for a season with more action on the field than off it, but, given the events of the past week, the chief executive may see trouble ahead.
At the season launch, before Marshallgate erupted, he displayed alarming prescience when he said: "Get ready for one hell of a ride in 2011."
He is no doubt already buckled in.
