Sean "Shoppe" Edward Hoppe[3] (born 19 January 1971) is a New Zealand former professional rugby league footballer who represented New Zealand.[1]
Early years
As a junior, he played for the Glen Innes Falcons, a feeder club to Ellerslie during the 1980s.[4]
Hoppe then joined the Northcote Tigers and played for them in the Auckland Rugby League competition. In 1989 he was part of the Tigers Fox Memorial and Lion Red National Knockout title winning side.[5] He was a part of several other Northcote winning teams during these years and scored two tries in the 1991 Lion Red League final.[6] In 1992 he played for Auckland in a preseason match against the Canberra Raiders.[7] Auckland lost 14–32, but the Raiders, who had been looking for a quality winger since the retirement of John Ferguson, saw enough of Hoppe to offer him a contract and he moved to Canberra before the end of the year.
Playing career
1990s
Hoppe played 17 games in his first season and won the Raiders' 1992 Rookie of the year award.[8] Hoppe was the New Zealand Player of the Year in 1993. However at the end of the 1993 season it was announced that Hoppe had signed for the new Auckland Warriors side who were to enter the competition in 1995. Canberra Raiders were unwilling to sign Hoppe for just one more year and so he joined the North Sydney Bears for the 1994 season and thus missed the Canberra Raiders 1994 Grand Final win over Canterbury-Bankstown (North Sydney lost the Grand Final qualifier to the Canberra Raiders). He was part of the Auckland Warriors inaugural side in 1995 and became a regular first team player. He was voted the competition's best winger in 1995 and his 19 tries in the 1995 season remained a club record until 2003 (when it was surpassed by Francis Meli).[9] He is currently fourth on the club's all-time try scoring list with 44.
Signed for a five-year contract, he was released by the Auckland Warriors near the end of the 1999 season so he could join St. Helens in the Super League competition.[10][11] Hoppe joined St. Helens on a short-term deal but then signed a two-year deal with the club.[12] Hoppe played for St. Helens from the interchange bench in their 1999 Super League Grand Final victory over Bradford Bulls.
After retirement Hoppe moved to Bundaberg and is a referee in the Bundaberg Rugby League competition as well as serving as an assistant coach for their representative team.
Sean is currently working as part of Bullgang in the WestConnex M4-M5 Link Tunnels
His daughter Kaitlyn Hoppe starred in Season 8 of The Bachelor Australia and came 5th.
Hoppe played in 35 test matches for New Zealand between 1992 and 2002, including the 1995 World Cup. His test career originally ended in 1999 however in 2002 he was called up into the squad touring Europe as an injury replacement and played in the final test against Great Britain and the one-off test against France. In these matches he played for the Kiwis in the Centres, rather than his usual Wing position.
^Played for the mighty Mt.Wellington Warriors Under16s & Under 17s in 1986 & 1987 respectively.HistoryArchived 8 February 2013 at the Wayback Machineellerslieleague.co.nz
^John Coffey and Bernie Wood, The Kiwis: 100 Years of International Rugby League, Hodder Moa, Auckland, 2007, p. 283.
^John Coffey and Bernie Wood, The Kiwis: 100 Years of International Rugby League, Hodder Moa, Auckland, 2007, p. 293.
^John Coffey and Bernie Wood, The Kiwis: 100 Years of International Rugby League, Hodder Moa, Auckland, 2007, p. 300.