This weekend when Jacob Hopper runs out to play his 50th game, two of his most ardent and dedicated supporters will once again be there to cheer him on at the SCG.
Jacob’s parents Deanna and James Hopper have ridden every bump, celebrated every high and been there for every low during their son’s short yet storied career.
While they’ll be in the grandstands on Saturday night, they won’t be entirely comfortable as they watch their 22-year-old son run around in the orange and charcoal.
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“I think given his history with injuries I’m just happy when he gets up,” Deanna said with a laugh.
“I love it when he gets in there because it’s the only way he knows how to play, he’s just see ball: get ball.
“That’s the way he’s always been and he’s so happy doing that, but I do love it when he stands up and gets to the next play.”
James is the same as his wife, despite having watched Jacob and his other two sons Zac and Sam play since they were children in the New South Wales town of Leeton, he still gets the same feeling that he did when Jacob made his debut in 2016.
“You’re still nervous and you never lose that awe that he’s playing on the big stage doing what he loves and does it pretty well,” James said.
“You’re always nervous and excited for him on game day as he’s pursuing his dreams.”
Like many parents across the country, Deanna and James have been vitally important in Jacob’s footballing journey.
The duo ran Leeton’s Auskick Centre for nine years after Jacob’s older brother Zac started playing football.
As James explains, it wasn’t long before their middle child was bitten by the football bug.
“As a four-year-old he wanted to come to Auskick, myself and Dee ran the local Auskick centre, and you had to be five to start but Jacob was probably one of the first under-agers to start because he was so keen,” he said.
“He was always coming down as his older brother Zac had been playing for a year or two and he’d always be there kicking the footy so from a very, very young age he just loved it and couldn’t get enough of footy.”
Jacob Hopper and his father James celebrate after the 2016 Qualifying Final victory over the Swans.
Deanna sees it a little differently to her husband, who despite teaching her sons how to swim with success in the pool, had to watch as football took over.
“James grew up playing Aussie Rules, so they had Aussie Rules footballs put in their basinets at the hospital when they were born. They were brainwashed from birth!” she said.
James continued to coach Jacob as his footballing journey went on and the proud father recalls a moment from his son’s early days as a footballer that really stood out.
It’s something that personifies Jacob Hopper as a footballer; determined and mature beyond his years.
“I coached him in under-12s as an assistant and one very clear memory I have is from a Grand Final when he was in under-12s,” James said.
“They were a pretty good side and went through the season pretty much undefeated, and they get through to the Grand Final and we’re coming up against Griffith in the local grudge match.
“The Griffith boys just came at him like a train, but he stood up to it and in the dying seconds of the game Jacob marked about 40 metres out when we were two points down.
“I knew the minute he took the mark he was going to kick it and he went back, slotted the goal and got the win.
“When I saw that I went, ‘Oh my God’. It was pretty mature for such a young player to take the responsibility to slot the goal and win the Grand Final.”
While it was a sign of things to come for Jacob, it wasn’t until three years later that Hopper senior thought his son might actually be on the path to something a little greater than an under-12s premiership.
“Adelaide has a few happy memories for us with his football journey, it’s where he was eventually drafted in 2015, but a few years prior as a 15-year-old playing for NSW in the All Schools carnival there, he made the All Australian side,” he said.
“I just thought, he’s playing against the South Australians, the Victorians and the West Australians at that level and he could not only match them, he could go past a few of them, so maybe he’s got what it takes.”
Deanna said that while talk of her son being drafted started to grow from there, the reality that her Jacob would become an AFL footballer didn’t dawn on her until draft day.
“We were in Adelaide for the draft and Brett Hand (GIANTS Head of Development and Welfare) came up to me and said, ‘His car’s on the back of a truck heading to Sydney’, I sort of went right, this is happening,” she said.
“It didn’t matter what number he was going at we knew he was going to Sydney. We were one of the lucky ones to know where he was going.”
The GIANTS selected Jacob Hopper with the seventh pick in the 2015 NAB AFL Draft after matching Gold Coast’s bid on the Academy product.
Coincidentally, Hopper would make his debut against the Suns in round eight, 2016 and would earn a NAB Rising Star nomination for his stellar 32-disposal debut.
While Hopper has been an important player for the GIANTS in three consecutive finals series, injuries and illness had prevented the young GIANT from reaching the 50-game milestone earlier.
The Riverina product had heart surgery at the end of the 2016 season and then lost 10 per cent of his body weight during the 2018 off-season after being diagnosed with glandular fever.
After completing his first full pre-season, the midfielder has played every game of the 2019 season so far.
“It’s a real relief,” Deanna said. “Jacob said to me this week, ‘Don’t travel up for the game, you’ve travelled enough’.
“But as I said to him, ‘Jacob, we’re going to celebrate every milestone you get to’, because he was so sick that at 50 games, we should celebrate it.
“Getting out there in round one was a first for him and we didn’t miss that, so we’re just very grateful, every week’s a bonus given the history he’s had.”
As they sit in the grandstand on Saturday night, nervous as ever but proud just the same, Deanna and James will be cheering loudly for their son in the GIANTS’ number two jumper.
James might also get a little louder when he sees his son successfully pull off some of the skills he passed on in the backyard of their home 550km west of Sydney over a decade ago.
“When I see him use both sides of his body – I told all the boys, particularly Jacob, that to perform at the top level you need to use both sides – I’m pretty happy.”
