Stage set for Hayne's heroic return
Oh, the fun we've all had this week, trying to work out what this week's life-long dream for Jarryd Hayne will be, and just what he will go out after next.
Open the bowling for Australia, from the Randwick end, in the Ashes campaign? You didn't know that wearing the Baggy Green has always been an ambition of his? Or maybe, he will make a last-minute bid to crack our Synchronised Swimming team for Rio, as that, truly, is what he has always wanted to do since he was just a kid from Minto.
Perhaps, however, he will pursue his real calling, to ride a Melbourne Cup winner this year, if he can just get his body into shape in time. He's always dreamt of doing that!
Oh, go on with you. All good fun. Please don't send tedious emails with your theories on the Tall Poppy Syndrome and how this is just another sad example of it.
The most likely course for Hayne to pursue, of course, is that he will return to the Parramatta Eels car-crash, where, amid the debris of the worst and most scandal-plagued season of any club, anywhere, ever, he is guaranteed to be the MESSIAH, come again.
It was God's plan for him, all along!
Changing hearts and minds
Still, let the record show. If Hayne does end up back with the Eels in a week or two, it is more than passing strange, given his quote when he left the Eels and the NRL mid-contract, and in the lurch, in 2014.
"I think I'm done [with rugby league]," he declared. "I think for myself and for the club I think it is appropriate to move on to a new chapter in my life. I feel like I have done everything in the game."
God. He moves in mysterious ways.
