22:17 EDT, 19 May 2021
7 shares
The name Hopoate has been associated with good, bad and utterly horrific headlines in rugby league and Sydney life for almost three decades.
Family patriarch John, the mercurially talented winger who made his name with the Manly Sea Eagles and later the Wests Tigers, was never far from controversy during his 13-year playing career. While he played for Australia and NSW, he was also responsible Or, indeed, after he retired.
Through it all, his faithful wife Brenda stood by him, and held the family together as the couple raised 11 children together.
While most have remained on the straight and narrow and become rising sports stars in their own right, a few have also inherited their father's bad boy ways.