All-star Warriors pack no worry for no-fuss Knight
Scott Bailey |
Cody Hopwood credits Kade Snowden for lighting the fuse to dream of being a front-rower for Newcastle.
“I still remember him giving me a footy one day after a game,” Hopwood told AAP.
“I doubt he’d remember it, but I thought it was pretty cool. That left a memory with me and I said I wanted to always play for the Knights.”
Hopwood is about Newcastle as they come.
A Maitland junior, he grew up on sitting with his mum on a picnic rug on the hill at McDonald Jones Stadium a fair few times each season.
They were there for the bad years, even if the now-20-year-old Cody has since wiped many of the results from his mind.
And he’s still young enough to have enjoyed the highs of 2023 as a teen, when Newcastle last made the finals and went over to New Zealand in week two.
“I thought that would be pretty cool to do,” Hopwood said.
“And three years later, it’s happening.”
In his prime, Snowden was as tough and relentless as they come.
Another Newcastle teen prodigy, he debuted for the Knights in 2005 and played State of Origin in 2010 and 2011.
Hopwood weighs in at about seven kilograms lighter and nine centimetres taller, but after just one year it’s evident he’s cut from the same kind of cloth.
Where Snowden’s career began during the Andrew Johns era and finished with a medical retirement at the start of the one-win 2016 season, Hopwood’s has already experienced both levels.
He debuted as Newcastle collected the spoon in the final round of last year, and just a year later is now playing out the idea of a finals match in Auckland.
One conversation with Hopwood will also tell anyone what they need to know about the front-rower. He is a no-fuss kind of guy.
That was evident with the way he and Tyson Frizell handled South Sydney’s pack in last Friday night’s upset 20-10 win.
“No one really gave us a chance, but we didn’t really fear that,” Hopwood said.
“It was a pretty surreal experience, to be honest. It was probably one of the best moments of my life.”
This Sunday looms as arguably the biggest challenge for any front-rower in rugby league, let alone a 20-year-old who has started just eight times in the NRL.
Not that taking on James Fisher-Harris or Mitch Barnett concerns him.
“Well it’s my job. And it’s something I’ve always dreamed of,” Hopwood said.
“I don’t want to get to this moment in my career now and think I didn’t put everything into it. It’s everything I’ve always dreamt of.
“Sure, it’s happened early, but I still believe everything happens for a reason. That’s my job, to go after Mitch Barnett and Fish on Sunday.”
And how exactly does one do that?
“You just try your best and see how you go,” Hopwood said.
AAP