The second youngest of seven boys, growing up in the blue-collar Yorkshire city of Hull, Hodgson was faced with an early ultimatum. Get tough or go to bed.

"My oldest brothers were in their early or mid 20s and they used to make us have play fights in the front room: have a fight and the loser has to go to bed. They never would send us to bed, but we'd get picked on," Hodgson jokes.

You can see that toughness on the field every week for the Canberra Raiders, playing through injury to try and get the best result for his team.

But dig below the surface and Hodgson is a staunch family man, devoted to his parents and brothers, his uncles and aunties and nieces and nephews.

It's made the last three years all the harder as he and fiancee Kirby Smith chased a family for themselves.

Their battle to have children is now almost won, with Smith set to give birth to a baby boy at the start of June. They began IVF in August, more than two years after the couple started trying to fall pregnant.

But it's still a difficult subject for Hodgson to talk about.

"I've been wanting kids for a long time, like every couple we've had our ups and downs, our rough patches, it's something that we've really wanted and now for it to be actually happening, we just can't wait," Hodgson told Fairfax Media this week.

"I don't want to go into it too deep but we've had to go down that path of IVF, and you're just hoping all the time, you're just waiting - that's the hardest part.

"Luckily we had a good doctor who led us in the right direction and looked after us well. It was pretty quick to be fair. I think all together it was about eight weeks, it was a tough time but it was the right thing for us."

Hodgson said he thinks there's still a certain stigma around fertility and reproduction, a taboo topic not to be spoken about in public.

"A lot of people have problems, it is a bit of thing that you just don't really bring up or want to talk about.

"People think 'oh, I don't really wanna tell people about stuff like that' but everybody has problems, there's no point just hiding away, it makes you feel like you're the only one going through it.

"But when you tell people what you've gone through more often then not the response is 'oh yeah, we went through something like that too' and you tend to find that a lot of people had the same problems as you which does make things easier."

Much of Hodgson's support has come from the 'family' within the walls of Raiders HQ.

He recalls Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart's understanding when he had to miss a training session or reschedule a weights session around a doctor's appointment.

And he singled out teammate Jack Wighton - his roomie away from home - as being a constant support.

"He's a great bloke, he had a lot of time for me, and always said if I need anything - even if you just need someone to talk to - just ring me.

"He'd always just ask me how things were and stuff like that, it helps, it really does. It makes you feel like you're not going through it by yourself."

Stuart said: "We are his family here, and you've got to understand that he and Kirby don't have anyone else here.

"When Josh and Kirby were going through IVF that was more important than football and football training.

"That's the role I have to play as a coach, I am a part of their family and the way you treat one another is so important and the focus and the importance on that procedure at that time far outweighed anything we were doing with football."

The family vibe that Raiders players and coaches talk of now is what attracted Hodgson to the club when he was being courted by NRL clubs in 2014.

Parramatta tried and failed - unbeknownst to Hodgson - to sign him in 2013, before Canberra came knocking a year later.

He had agreed to extend his contract with Super League club Hull KR before Hodgson asked his agent to have one last look at Australia.

"There was a couple of offers - nothing that stood out - and when I spoke to Ricky the direction and team spirit he wanted to build and what he wanted from me as a bloke coming in and being a senior voice ... that really excited me," said Hodgson.

"I was pretty honest with [Hull KR], I explained that I'd had an offer, and I know I've agreed in principle and I'm happy to stick to the deal if that's the case and I won't go back on my word.

"But if there's a chance it can happen can we make it happen? Luckily there were some people at the club who allowed me to fulfil my dream and come over here."

Hodgson and Smith arrived in Canberra full to the brim with the same old and simply untrue Canberra-bashing stories.

But he'd also picked the brains of several former Raiders players about just what to expect from the city.

Eighteen months later and the city's now seemingly stuck with them. The couple are looking to buy a house and raise a family in the capital.

He asked Smith to marry him atop Telstra Tower (how Canberran is that?) and the two will marry next month at the registry before having a "proper" party back in England at the end of the 2016 season.

"I spoke to a couple of blokes who played here and lived here and they all had good things to say, anyone who had lived here loved the place," said Hodgson.

"Guys like Lincoln Withers, Ryan O'Hara, Michael Dobson, Mick Weyman, Nev Costigan, all people who have played in Canberra all tended to have good things to say about the place.

"And then you get the guys who have been here for a game but never lived here saying 'oh why are you moving to Canberra? There's nothing there, you'll hate it' and I was kinda in two minds.

"I got here and really didn't know what all those people were talking about - we love it here, it's a great place, especially for families, it's just what we wanted to kind of start a family and bring up our kids here, it's just the right environment.

"I want to stay here. Playing-wise if I ever have to go back and have a couple of years [in England] - if I feel I have more to give and there's not much happening for me in the NRL then I'd always be open to going back and playing in the Super League, but in terms of where I finish up when I retire I'll be here."