WITH a back-to-front baseball cap glued to his head and a black fleece hoodie clinging to his frame, Jarryd Hayne still looks every inch the kid from Campbelltown.
Hayne is sauntering though the lobby of Coogee's swanky Crowne Plaza Hotel, but the urban clobber could betray him as an anonymous youth on Queen St mall.
And despite the attention, adulation and applause that come with being one of the NRL's most talked about players, that's exactly the company Hayne now longs to keep.
Although tender in age, the 23-year-old is already entering the middle stage of his career. This season marks his sixth in the top grade. And despite being overlooked for game one, Hayne was re-called as the Blues' most experienced player with 11 Origin caps to his name.
With age comes experience, and with experience comes maturity, and then comes selflessness.
So instead of focusing on whatever shortcomings were responsible for him missing selection three weeks ago, Hayne now wonders what he can do to help others with much more pressing problems.
He's now wondering about kids from his old housing commission neighbourhoods in Sydney's south-west. Kids with his natural talent for rugby league, but bereft of the opportunities and disciplinary structures required to turn their promise into fame.
"It's hard to explain," Hayne tells The Daily Telegraph from Blues camp this week. "(As you get older) football becomes bigger, but at the same time it becomes less. I now understand that everything needs to come through my actions.
"It's now about giving back to the football community - that's been the biggest thing I've come to realise.
"I want to get back to Campbelltown and get something running down there, near where I grew up.
"I want to help the kids down there because I know what it's like. It can be a rough area and I want to get something going to give them more opportunities.
"I saw a lot of talented kids waste their lives."
At present, Hayne's Campbelltown mission is embryonic. Since exploding on to the scene in 2006, he's made a handful of surprise visits to the lumpy ovals of his childhood in Minto to join local kids in games of touch footy (pictured).
"I'm not sure exactly what form it would take, but I'd like to set up a place where kids can play sport or just chill out," he said. "For kids who need help, hopefully there would be support staff. But it's not only through sport ... I'd just like to do anything down there."
Aside from the troubled youth who would stand to benefit most from Hayne's attention, Eels coach Stephen Kearney would be heartened to hear his most talented player speaking like a natural-born leader.
Because when he chose Parramatta's leadership group for this season, Kearney omitted Hayne in favour of veteran trio
Luke Burt,
Nathan Hindmarsh and
Ben Smith. "I'm probably not someone who talks like a leader and that's got to be my next big step," Hayne said.
"Steve has spoken to me about those things - about slowly becoming a leader at Parramatta through my actions. Burty, Hindy and
Ben Smith ... they're the old heads of the team. They make the decisions on everything and they organise a lot of activities.
"There's an opportunity for me to be involved as well. But it's something I've got to slowly grow into, because I'm still only 23.
"The more I play with blokes my own age or younger, the more mature I feel.
"Up until now I've always felt like the young bloke in the team."
