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AAP
AAP
Sport
Murray Wenzel

Dream Maroons debut a bittersweet moment: Hopgood

It's been a long road to a Queensland debut for Parramatta's J'maine Hopgood. (Jono Searle/AAP PHOTOS)

J'maine Hopgood spent his first afternoon as a Queensland Maroon telling Billy Slater how it could have been very different.

The hard-running Parramatta tackling machine, with an offload to boot, was ready to give up on rugby league and become a carpenter when he left school as a 15-year-old.

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