It is now deemed a discriminatory act for state road authorities to make their workers stand by the roadside holding SLOW signs. The Full Bench of Fair Work Australia (FWA) has stated that  signage can still be used but must first be approved by the FWA.

Signs that have been approved include: “My Father Was A Collingwood Fan”, “I Had Potential But Went To Keilor Downs Tech” and “I’m A Civil Engineer But Went Through The Wrong Agency”.

Not even Melbourne can produce subzero temperatures, sleet and North Sea mists on game day. But this is the World Cup Challenge – the Northern England challenge.

And most Australian teams, through indifference (the NRL premier assumes it is the world champion) and because their English opponents treat it as an international and as validation of their Super League, have failed it.

Now, through the mist, comes the thunderous booing from the hordes. It is the hooded Rhino fans with the stench of pie and mushy peas on their breath. Primed with Yorkshire ale they suddenly stop braying and start singing the Melbourne Storm to its grave.

The Storm has spent its entire existence weathering alien environments. Five months ago it was sweating in the humidity of Western Sydney and blinded by the glare of all that blue and yellow.

Here in Leeds, however, there is a further challenge, the most frightening of all: Keith Senior.

He’s a mean looking man even in a sport where oversized deltoids, no neck, and no fear are necessary. Like the AFL’s Barry Hall (who looks as if he wants to knock you out AND does), Senior is big and bald. The lack of hair draws your gaze to his. Small, close-set eyes but focused, intense and LUMINOUS. We’ve all seen that ook on the playing field, in the pub or boardroom filled with the ruthlessly ambitious.

The ABC doco Primal Instincts examined a theory that THAT look can be the result of a lack of serotonin, a hormone that helps regulate anger.

It can be an inherited disorder so keep Keith Jnr Senior locked down in the playpen.

Martin Amis, describing one of his scary working class characters, could easily be talking about our Keith: “Keith was a bad guy. Keith was a very bad guy. You might even say that he was the very worst guy. But not the worst, not the very worst ever. There were worse guys. Keith no longer swore at his wife or slammed her up against the wall with any conviction. Keith didn’t look like a murderer. He looked like a murderer’s dog. Keith had often been told, by various magistrates, girlfriends and probation officers, that he had a ‘poor character'”.

And poor taste. Afflicted with baldness our Keith prefers his women to have hair, preferably blond.

The English Sun newspaper calling Keith a ‘cheating rug rat’, revealed he had an affair in 2008 with a ‘busty Oz blond beauty’. called Charmyne (“He’s a 10 between the sheets and has a great body for an old guy”, opined Charmayne). I can imagine Keith’s eyes narrowing a little over the ‘old guy’ bit). He was engaged at the time to an English blond topless model who he had left his wife for.

As it turned out Keith didn’t pose a threat to the Storm at all. In fact he probably won them the match. In the 60th minute with the scores deadlocked he gave referee Richard Silverwood one of his piercing stares and an awful earful about not penalising the Storm for slowing the play-the-ball. Cameron Smith converted the resulting penalty and Melbourne never relinquished the lead.

So the Storm survived the wrath of Keith. But there are a few individuals praying Keith takes his serotonin. And soon.

Silverwood’s existence is under a cloud after Keith publically stated: “I’m sick of him. He’s arrogant. He likes to be the centre of attention”.

And will Brett Finch make it back home after he insanely (I mean doesn’t he realise he could die?) called Keith a poor loser?

There were also some fans of opposing Super League teams who laughed online at Keith over his criticism of Melbourne’s tactics saying Leeds play the same way. I hope, for their sake, they can’t be traced.

If Keith reads any part of this article, it will be my last.

Anyway, the Englishness of it all was symbolised by the WCC trophy – it was just like the one being held aloft by Wayne Rooney at Wembley a few hours earlier with the annoying ribbons dangling from the handles.

Finally why do Gillette bother to sponsor events like the WCC and pay sporting superstars (and Michael Clarke) a fortune to advertise their Fusion razor? They have a monopoly on mens shaving products. You go into the supermarket and find there is no other brand of razor in existence. The only competition is from their own ancient Sensor Excel twin blade I use and on whose packet they implore you to buy the five blade Fusion.

Recently I bent down to pick up my kids. My hip ached as I lowered myself and when I pushed upwards a sharp pain attacked the joint of my left big toe – it was arthritis caused by playing football.
I know because during a foot X-ray for a suspected break the doctor pointed out a small area he said was the first sign of the condition. It has been fifteen years but it’s now taking hold.
It should have been in the right foot – my preferred kicking one. But as I was long sighted in the left eye, blurring my peripheral vision on that side, I would often, in the helter-skelter of a contest near goal, swing the other way, on to my left foot; unwittingly damning it with the trauma of impact.

And then there is my back.

Some time ago my brother told me of an outing he made with some friends. They stopped the car on arriving at their destination but one of them, a recently retired Melbourne player, was so stiffened by the journey he couldn’t get out of the car. He was in his early thirties.

Aaron Moule retired from rugby league when he was only twenty six so he could be physically capable of playing with his kids when he was older. He began playing again shortly after, however, because it was the only way he could support those same children.

A professional footballer knows the harsh truth about the balance of nature. In order to look, feel and perform like a god he punishs his mortal body. And then later, after retirement, it reminds him what he put it through -a forty year old ex-footballer has the limited mobility and insistent pain of his seventy year old father.

Barry Humphries recently boasted that he had outlived most of the macho sporty types that attended Melbourne Grammar during his time there. As if a contact sport was a way of keeping healthy.

It’s the midweek excitement over the upcoming game that makes you forget the pain of the previous one. The adrenalin-induced feeling as you prepare to run out can’t be replicated in normal life.

But there is also a moral imperative that leads you to torture your body. Grasping his own chest the coach would scream: “You’re playing for the jumper!” And he was right, of course, whether you liked it or not. You weren’t just a sportsman or someone plying a trade, you were representing a club and its people.

There is a psychological legacy too. If you’re not an aggressive person to start with you soon become one. Often you would find yourself despising an opponent. Less skillful but stronger and more experienced defenders would give a you a quick elbow to the stomach if they thought you were going to lead.

A celebrated captain of a VFA club once held me down while play continued around us and hissed: “If you move I’ll kill you”

And most shocking of all, there can be your own teammates. I got to play alongside one of my idols in an AFL reserves match. He was returning from injury and keen on impressing. I was free on the half forward flank with a good chance of kicking a goal. He was about to be tackled so I called for the handball. “F*ck off!” he screamed before being tackled and giving away a free kick. I bent down towards him and found myself saying – to a Collingwood legend –
“And f*ck you too!”

Psychologically I was never quite the same again.

“You’ve got to ask yourself: ‘Do you want to play League football?”, Leigh Matthews asked the playing group after calling an early Sunday morning meeting to announce he’d caught “one of our young players” [me!] smiling during a thrashing on a horrible day at an underwater VFL Park.

It was a legitimate question, of course, but he had assumed I didn’t want to play. He was wrong. My smile had been an obliging response to a joke made by a more senior player (who would later play in the 1990 premiership team) but I was depressed from the impending loss.

Of course I wanted to play AFL (it was VFL then)football. To play at the elite level and be immortalised in the Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers.

I chose to walk because nothing about the place seemed right. I didn’t approach another club and so I wasn’t immortalised.

I have regretted it ever since… I think.

I’ll soon be crippled too.