From Super League to the silver screen: How 'walking contradiction' Mason did it against all odds

The Keith Mason story begins on a council estate in Dewsbury Moor as one of five children raised by a single mother.

Rugby league was part of his life from the age of six, starting out at the Dewsbury Moor community club which produced luminaries of the 13-player code such as the Burgess brothers, Ryan Sheridan and Matt Diskin.

Although he was rejected by Bradford Bulls, Castleford and Leeds Rhinos, where he was part of an academy team which included future 'Golden Generation' members Rob Burrow, Danny McGuire and fellow Dewsbury boy Diskin, Mason eventually earned his chance in Super League with Wakefield Trinity following a successful trial.

Mason credits the influence of his mother and his desire to repay her unwavering faith in him for him forging a career as a professional athlete.

"I think my mum was a big factor in that because she had five children, my brother was an alcoholic, my sister was hooked on drugs, and I didn't want to be the next kid who broke mum's heart," Mason said.

"She had my back all the way through being a young kid, when everyone doubted me, and I had to believe in myself."

Mason pulls no punches about how he could have easily gone down a very different path, though. Away from rugby, he spent much of his time hanging around with older boys from his estate, and was repeatedly kicked out of school along with constantly being in trouble with the police and a regular up in front of the magistrates for various offences.

The sliding doors moment for him came at the age of 14 when he agreed to a friend's request to help move some speakers for what turned out to be a house burglary.

The duo were swiftly arrested and charged, and their fate was to be determined in court. His friend was imprisoned for two years, while Mason received two years probation and a 12-month conditional discharge.

It was the wake-up call he needed, and even now Mason reflects on how fortunate he was to avoid being sent to prison as well.

"I was only 14 years of age and at that point, you don't think about the consequences or anything, and when I walked in the house I saw it was ransacked and I was like 'this is somebody's house' - but I was already too deep in," Mason said.

"I took the speakers out the house, the coppers caught up with us later...and I was very lucky I didn't get sent to jail.

"I just had this epiphany like 'This is it: You're either going to end up dead or in jail', and I always thought in my mind I'd always make it and get out of this situation.

"It was the fact this kid was in jail and I missed out on jail, I had this epiphany 'what do you want to be?'"

The day after his final court appearance, Mason resolved to focus on rugby, immediately cutting the bad influences out of his life. Returning to Dewsbury Moor's U16s, his performances on the back of training were good enough to earn selection for Yorkshire and the England Schoolboys representative teams.

The door to the professional ranks proved a tough one to unlock though, and rejections by Bradford, Castleford, and Leeds - where he was told they did not believe he would ever play in Super League - nearly derailed those ambitions.

"To be honest, I went home and broke down crying and didn't know what to do," Mason said, recalling the aftermath of being told the Rhinos would not offer him a full-time contract.

"I remember someone coming up to me saying 'give it one last shot, Keith' and Wakefield came in for me.

"I had a trial game and it wasn't the best, but [head coach] John Harbin said 'listen, he's got it - we're going to sign him'."

After starring for a Wakefield academy team which featured other future Super League stars in Danny Brough, Ben Westwood and Gareth Ellis, Mason got his first taste of top-level rugby league in two games at the end of the 2000 season at the age of 17.

The following year he played 21 times and was called up by Wales, but little did Mason know he had been attracting interest from further afield until told by team-mate Willie Poching that Melbourne Storm wanted to sign him.

At 19, Mason became the youngest British forward to play in the NRL - turning down an approach from Leeds, the club which had previously rejected him, to move to Australia.

While the likes of Will Pryce and Kai Pearce-Paul have recently become the latest English talents to move to the NRL, at the turn of the century it was a rarity for any player from these shores to head Down Under.

So, naturally, Mason's first call when arriving in Australia was to meet up with the other British player in the competition and fellow prop Adrian Morley, then playing for Sydney Roosters.

"Back then, there was only one English player there - someone I looked up to and played against a great many times - and that was Adrian Morley," Mason said.

"When I went out there, we went on a night out and I had the worst hangover the next day! He came to meet me the next day and we had a coffee at Coogee Bay.

"I wanted to meet him because he was someone I looked up to, and it was just me and him out there."

Early on in his time at Melbourne, Mason shared a house with future Australia great Cameron Smith (pictured) and found himself in a side with a clutch of players who would go on to make a huge impact.

Although he would ultimately make only four first-team appearances for the Storm, along with appearing regularly for their reserve-grade Queensland Cup side, it is a period of his life Mason looks back on fondly.

"When I first moved over, I lived with Cameron Smith and his wife," Mason said. "Billy Slater was coming through at the time, Cooper Cronk, Jake Webster, Semi Tadulala - all these players who were in the squad.

"Melbourne was an amazing experience...the list goes on and on.

"Mark Murray was the coach the first year, then Craig Bellamy came in and he liked me, but then all of a sudden there was all this stuff about me going back to England and signing for a Super League club."

Returning to Super League midway through the 2003 season, Mason joined reigning champions St Helens and immediately established himself as a regular.

Grand Final glory would evade him and the team during his time at Knowsley Road, but the forward did claim a major honour in 2004 as he helped Saints to a 32-16 victory over old rivals Wigan Warriors in the Challenge Cup final at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

An unhappy loan switch to Castleford which ended two games into the 2006 season following a disagreement with head coach Terry Matterson led to a move to Huddersfield Giants, where Mason would end up spending nearly half of his playing career.

Despite 150 appearances in a Giants shirt and returns to the Challenge Cup final in 2006 at Twickenham and 2009 at Wembley, losing to St Helens and Warrington respectively on each occasion, Mason's time at Huddersfield ended acrimoniously following the 2012 season when he was sacked over a social media post and later won a claim for unfair dismissal against the club, being awarded a six-figure sum.

It was an experience which tarnished Mason's love of rugby league, but his 18-year-old son Lukas now being part of Wigan Warriors' academy set-up has seen him rediscover that as he supports the promising second row's journey.

"He's got a big, big future ahead of him if he works hard," Mason said.

"I'm a rugby fan again now because of my son doing what he's doing and he's got a bit more skill than me."