The Canberra Raiders' belligerent anthem warns that Raiders' players are "fearsome men from the ACT".
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But perhaps this is only true when they're playing. Over coffee at a Casey cafe, Raiders' English stars Josh Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead were mild and kindly.
Hodgson was a model of fatherly tenderness, cradling his new son George. The Hodgsons – Josh, wife Kirby and George – live just down the road from Casey's shopping centre. It was an easy pram-push for Hodgson, the Raiders' much-admired hooker.
The sleeping giant of Raiders fever is stirring again. The team hasn't won a premiership since 1994 and their title hopes will go on the line in an elimination final on Saturday night.
The Raiders will play the Penrith Panthers in front of an expected sell-out crowd, but Hodgson, from Hull, and Whitehead, from Bradford (both are blessed with classic ultra-Yorkshire accents), are facing different battles.
Hodgson limped away from the Raiders' week-one finals loss to the Cronulla Sharks and is in a race against time to recovery from an ankle injury.
Whitehead was left shattered after giving away a penalty in the dying minutes that allowed the Sharks to kick their way to a two-point win.
Almost 20,000 tickets have been sold for the Raiders' clash against Penrith in what will be a re-match of the 1990 and 1991 grand finals.
Hodgson and Whitehead had only just entered the world in England when some of the greats of the game – Mal Meninga, Laurie Daley, Ricky Stuart, Royce Simmons and Greg Alexander – battled in the epic Raiders-Panthers grand finals.
The English duo have a chance to create their own slice of history and end a 19-year preliminary final drought if they beat the Panthers.
But this reporter was interested in them as Canberrans, as transplanted pommies in this odd, much-maligned city. It emerges that both men caused astonishment when they said they were Canberra-bound. Both arrived with trepidations but both are happy that they came.
"Canberra's really got a homely feel to it," the burly Whitehead, 26, said. He lives in Belconnen.
"When I first signed on for Canberra a lot of people said 'you're daft, why are you going there? It's got no beaches'. But once you've come here you realise what it's got."
It's got plenty of golf courses and Whitehead loves to play golf – although he says the games' frustrations sometimes have him wanting to hurl his golf bag into one of Yowani's billabongs.
Hodgson is not nearly so hulky as his friend but his liberally-tattooed arms are impressively brawny.
"When I was first on the way to Canberra I didn't really know what to expect," Hodgson, 26, said.
"People, Aussies, were bagging the place.
"But then we got here and we love it. It's a great city. We're trying to apply for permanent residency, so hopefully once the football days are over ... we're open to building a home here [in Canberra].
"I want to live here, especially [gesturing to George] for the little man. When I go to Sydney I get stressed [about teeming crowds], about people bumping into me while I'm carrying him."
Hodgson has a huge family back home. He concedes the tyranny of distance does create some yearnings, especially for George's grandparents.
Hodgson is by no means (apart from his grand arms) a hulk. I wondered, as a timid weakling myself, if he is ever frightened by having Goliaths of the other team stampeding at him.
He said that thanks to "adrenaline" he's always too absorbed to feel scared and that he has "lots of big, ugly [he pronounces the word as "oogly"] boys" – nodding in the direction of his fellow Yorkshireman – to look after him.
George, born here and so a true Canberran, slept right through the interview with these amiable men of the ACT, these Yorkshire cogs of the Green Machine.
