im trying to see how close i can get to the hyper-real effect, can anyone tell me how well i've succeeded or how badly i've failed haha

Well it is a nice effect and if it is what the client is looking for then you succeeded. Just be sure that it does not increase the grain in the face too much if you are handing over larger images. It makes the subject look old with bad skin. But that might just be a personal take on it.
I just dont quite get the football coming out of his head... was that intentional? Oh now I see- I thought is was a drawing on the wall which his head was in front of. I'd try to create a stronger edge between the white of the cap and the wall to emphasize what it is.

Regards

If that is what you want - that is all that matters
Nice work.

May I ask how this effect is created? What photoshop tools did you use mainly?

I really just oversharpen and play with high pass filtering on different layers that have soft light, and the layers are made from different channels. thanks for the comments!