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When Leon Pryce sheepishly asked Matty Johns not to "give me any stick" before an interview after Great Britain's big win last Saturday, he seemed fearful he could be in for another dose of the intense vilification he suffered earlier in the week.
As Pryce discovered after his "I'd rather be on Blackpool Beach than Bondi Beach - they can keep their country" rant to a BBC reporter, you can say what you like about Australians but woe betide anyone who knocks their beaches.
The response to Pryce's comments was savage, and former Kangaroo Terry Hill was among those climbing into the Bradford-born player.
"Bradford is a dump. It's the closest thing you'll find to Tempe Tip," Hill said.
"In Bradford during the 94 Roo tour, they told us not to walk home after 9pm without a gun."
And Hill was far from alone in dishing it out to Pryce.
But Pryce had nothing to fear from Johns after setting up Lee Gilmour's clinching try in the shock Lions victory. Even most Aussies know that the aftermath of humiliating defeat is hardly the time to be flinging verbals.
Once again, Pryce had proved to be the John Gotti of league.
Like the Teflon Don, nothing ever seems to stick to a player who has dodged his share of bullets since making his Super League debut at 15 - the youngest player in Bradford's 145-year history.
Marked out as a rare natural talent in his schoolboy days, the 1.87m, 95kg speedster can play every position on the field bar prop. His key attribute is his elusiveness ... on and off that field.
That gift was never better illustrated than in 2003, when he wasn't considered for Great Britain's Ashes squad because of the extreme likelihood he would be jailed mid-series.
In November 2002, Pryce was arrested for smashing a beer glass in the face of former Bradford coaching assistant Eddie McGuinness at a local tavern.
McGuinness needed 48 stitches. Pryce was charged with assault causing grievous bodily harm. Leeds players Ryan Bailey and Chev Walker had recently been jailed for nine and 18 months respectively for their parts in a city centre brawl, so it seemed certain Pryce would follow them inside.
But the judge seemed to take a dim view of the fact that McGuinness waited a month to report the attack and instead sought £40,000 ($115,000) in compensation.
He accepted Pryce's explanation that he had forgotten he was holding a glass in his hand when he hit McGuinness - who he claimed had grabbed him by the throat - and sentenced him to 120 hours of community service.
Leeds fans were outraged by the verdict. Years later, they still greet Pryce's every touch of the ball with chants of "You're supposed to be in jail".
Leeds fans are not the only ones who persistently jeer Pryce. Wigan supporters boo his every touch - they have not forgotten the 2003 grand final when, with the match in the balance, Pryce seized international teammate Brian Carney in what appeared to be a classic grapple tackle and smashed his head into the Old Trafford turf.
Carney, Wigan's most potent attacking weapon, was rendered unconscious. Pryce picked up the loose ball and ran away with it and Bradford ran away with the match. "I'd rather be sat here with a Super League ring on my finger than worried about what the crowd think," Pryce said after the match.
"It was just a tackle, you see them every week," added teammate Paul Deacon.
Wigan fans still disagree.
He might not have a great record of winning friends, but when it comes to influencing results, few can claim an impact to rival Pryce's. He has appeared in five of the past six Super League grand finals - a dislocated shoulder kept him out of Bradford's 2004 defeat by Leeds - winning four.
His ability to come up smelling of roses was never more evident than last year. After Pryce had a fallout with Bradford's management, it was common knowledge he would leave for St Helens at the end of the year.
As an injured vastly experienced dual-code international teammate at Bradford looked out of the window of the club's training base and saw Pryce lagging behind behemoth prop Joe Vagana in shuttle drills, he remarked, "Leon is the laziest player I have ever played with."
Clearly Pryce's heart wasn't in it any more.
His form took a dip so severe that, after an abysmal display in a defeat at Wakefield, coach Brian Noble wondered whether Pryce had thrown the game as a way of thumbing his nose at the club.
Pryce was heading for the gallows this time, for sure. Only he wasn't.
After an intense discussion with Noble, Pryce retained his spot in a Bradford side that didn't lose another game all season, becoming the first club to win the Super League title after finishing the season outside of the top two.
Without Pryce, the Bulls had limped tamely to defeat by Leeds in the previous year's final. With him, they beat the same opposition easily, and Pryce won the Harry Sunderland trophy for his man-of-the-match performance.
This year seemed to be passing in uneventful fashion for a player no who is stranger to controversy. His switch to St Helens couldn't have gone more smoothly, and he played a pivotal role in the club's clean sweep of all three domestic trophies.
Then came his inexplicable attack on Bondi and Aussies in general. Without doubt, knives were being honed to razor point for the forthcoming ritual disembowelling of the reluctant tourist.
Once the Kangaroos had taken care of business on the field, the media would take care of Pryce off it.
But just as he always has, Pryce wriggled away unscathed.
Pryce has been named to play at stand-off against the Kiwis in Wellington tonight, but that selection could be smoke and mirrors from Britain coach Noble, who didn't rate Pryce as a stand-off at Bradford and wouldn't have missed the gifted ball-runner ignoring a two-man overlap to bomb a certain try in Britain's first meaningful attack against Australia last week.
Don't be surprised if Brian Carney's miraculous recovery from a pulled hamstring falls over at the last minute, slotting Danny McGuire back in at stand-off and pushing Pryce out wide, probably to the wing.
Wherever he starts, Pryce will eventually pop up all over the place, prodding and probing.
And there will almost certainly be an occasion when the Kiwis think they've got their hands on him, only to see him squirm free, making some valuable extra metres or supplying a crucial pass, doing as he always does, making the best of a bad situation.
