Roach, the 19-year-old knockabout son of local football figure Iain Bannerman, was about to start a family of his own.

Roach's girlfriend Skye Leonard is due to give birth on Thursday, but her boyfriend won't be around to hold her hand.

On Friday, Roach died after the car he was travelling in crashed into a power pole, hit a gas main and burst into flames.

The dramatic car crash claimed the lives of three men.

The Bannerman family were in mourning yesterday, surrounded by family and friends.

Slowly they are coming to grips with the tragedy that claimed their only son.

"He said he wasn't going out late and he was going to be home early," Mr Bannerman said.

Roach had made sure to keep his mobile phone on last week, ever-ready for the phone call from his expectant partner.

So when the clocked ticked over to midnight and no-one could get hold of Roach, Mr Bannerman knew something was up.

News of a fiery crash in Unanderra soon reached him via a friend. In the early hours of Saturday morning Mr Bannerman guessed the truth.

Police knocked on his door about 2.30am, but Mr Bannerman knew the news before they spoke it.

"The night it happened, 100 per cent of me knew that he was in that accident," he said.

Roach's parents yesterday described their son as a generous man - "the life of everybody, never had a sad face on".

They said he would never drive after drinking, but would cool down at the pub with mates after working a 50-hour week as a refractory bricklayer on top of a further sometimes 15 hours as a part-time bar tender at his father's Dapto pub. "He had heaps of friends ... he was loved by everybody, a happy-go-lucky guy," Roach's mother, Karen Bannerman, said.

Since news of the death spread, the family have been fielding calls from across the community and throughout the nation, "from the top of Western Australia and the top of Queensland".