{"id":473550,"date":"2025-10-02T20:21:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T20:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=473550"},"modified":"2025-10-02T23:21:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:21:01","slug":"famous-fathers-advice-that-saved-star-from-heartbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=473550","title":{"rendered":"Famous father&#039;s advice that saved star from heartbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exactly 30 years after winning his own grand final, Jason Hetherington gave his son Kobe words of wisdom that saved him from missing Sunday&#x27;s big game.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/brisbane-broncos\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"Broncos\">Broncos<\/a> forward Kobe has been dogged by a painful hip injury for the second half of the season and at one stage was considering surgery that would have ended his year.<\/p>\n<p>But up stepped Jason, a classy hooker and member of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/canterbury-bulldogs\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"Canterbury\">Canterbury<\/a>&#x27;s 1995 title-winning team with the wisdom that comes with age.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/news-2025-phil-gould-hospital-health-scare-canterbury-bulldogs-20251001-p5mzf0.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"\"><strong>&#x27;Lucky&#x27; Gould tweets from hospital amid health scare<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/news-2025-kieran-foran-dally-m-awards-ken-stephen-medal-speech-20251002-p5mzgt.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"\"><strong>Foran&#x27;s emotional Dally M tribute to late stepson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/afl\/news-2025-melbourne-demons-clayton-oliver-christian-petracca-steven-king-may-period-reports-20251002-p5mzij.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"\"><strong>&#x27;Flat&#x27; $1.7m star back on trade table amid Demons shake-up<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s been tough for Kobe &#8211; he had to either play in pain or have the surgery,&quot; Jason, now 56 and owner of a water truck business in Gladstone, told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The doctors wanted to operate but I knew he had a real chance of playing the big end-of-season games with the Broncos and that he would hate sitting on the sidelines.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;So I told him he should just grit his teeth and learn to play with pain.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"08c318af-0fb7-4718-942c-1e3d5128143e\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/08c318af-0fb7-4718-942c-1e3d5128143e\" alt=\"Broncos gun Kobe Hetherington.\" data-width=\"1396\" data-height=\"785\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;All the great players do that at some stage of their career &#8211; that&#x27;s the nature of the game we play.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s been really hard for him but he has toughed it out and hopefully on Sunday he will reap the reward.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The Hetherington family will make the long trip south to watch Kobe in what will be his final game for the Broncos on Sunday before joining Manly.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Watch the 2025 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/stream.9now.com.au\/KDmNCTLBeRb\"><em><strong>9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><em><strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&quot;My wife and I, Kobe&#x27;s twin Zac who plays for Ipswich Jets and his younger brother will all be there &#8211; no way we could miss it,&quot; Jason said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The flights from Queensland are outrageous but we did our homework and are driving to Ballina (in northern NSW) and the flights from there are a lot cheaper.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Jason coached Kobe as a wee lad in Gladstone but knew his time was up one evening when they had a training session in the backyard.<\/p>\n<p><img data-video-id=\"6380338272112\" src=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/pickerimage-9.jpg\" alt=\"Reynolds, Madge eyeing more premiership glory\" data-vms-id=\"ref:cmg6bxwmx000c0hsx732x0jyk\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;I was teaching Kobe and Zac how to tackle and Kobe said &#x27;no, you don&#x27;t do it like that dad, Mrs Coleman at school taught us to do it this way&#x27;,&quot; he recalled.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;And you know what\u2026 Mrs Coleman was right so I stepped back and let her coach him and she played her part in getting him here.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Father and son have set up their own grand final dynasty.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I played in three and this is Kobe&#x27;s second so I&#x27;m proud of what we achieved,&quot; Jason said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Win or lose, you are brothers for life and I was down in Sydney for the 30th anniversary reunion of the Bulldogs&#x27; win over Manly not long ago.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;They are games you never forget for the rest of your days and I&#x27;ve been telling Kobe that and to embrace the week.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The Broncos take on Melbourne in Sydney on Sunday.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Exactly 30 years after winning his own grand final, Jason Hetherington gave his son Kobe words of wisdom that saved him from missing Sunday&#x27;s big <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=473550\" title=\"Famous father&#039;s advice that saved star from heartbreak\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":473555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=473550"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473561,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473550\/revisions\/473561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/473555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=473550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=473550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=473550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}