Jarryd Hayne isn't your average 'Australian done good' in the US
So the sport editor of this journal emailed me: “I want a piece on the fascination with Jarryd Hayne over here and his success over there. I reckon it has something to do with the way Australia looks up to big brother the US, and the way that success in the States kind of validates someone’s talent. It’s more than a sports star swapping codes and doing well, it’s about him doing so in America. Thoughts?”
Indeed, there’s something in that, though there are more layers to it. Australia and the US do have something of a fraternal bond. In 1985 when Crocodile Dundee went to New York – and there was no more Australian Australian than Paul Hogan – and charmed America by being knockabout and friendly and Australian, and the people of New York, Americans, liked him and by extension us, that made us feel good, you bet. Because for Americans to know about Australia, when they barely had maps much less the internet, it was a bit of a thing.
In the 1996 Olympics basketballer Shane Heal was playing for the Boomers against the Dream Team and played chesty-bumps with Charles Barkley and called him many rude words, and Australians thought, ‘You beauty. That’s exactly how I would have reacted had this 6-foot-6 bald monster crashed into me’. Next thing Heal was playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves and people thought, ‘One of ours in the Big Show, doing his thing. Cool’.
There was Dave Nilsson in baseball and Luc Longley in basketball, the 7-foot centre who won a championship with the Chicago Bulls. Colin Scotts played seven games as a tight end for the Arizona Cardinals. Darren Bennett was a punter in the NFL who once actually made a tackle and it made highlights reels because punters are barely speed humps in American football but the Aussie boy, boo-ya, belted this bloke.
But that stuff, I think, is more pride than validation of talent. Australians know we’re good at sport. It’s great that people are doing it internationally. But the wow-factor of Aussies trotting about on the global stage has softened over time because there are so many Australians in so many fields. All the sportspeople, all the actors. How many actors are there? There’s an Aussie Hulk, Thor and Star Wars character. There’s an Aussie chef on Oprah. Doesn’t get bigger than a chef on Oprah.
Yes it does. Greg Norman! The Shark was our best No1 man of golf for 20 years and is the reason today there are dozens – hundreds – of Aussies whacking away around the world and winning on the US PGA Tour. And America … America is just where you go if you’re good. The Big Show. Like New York, you make it there, make it anywhere, all that.
But there’s never been one like Jarryd Hayne. He’s an outlier event. Like Scotts, Shark, Nilsson and the Oprah chef, Hayne is a pioneer. But the fascination with him isn’t just because he’s an Aussie doing well in the States. It’s because he’s killing it. And he’s doing something no-one’s ever done: he’s playing what looks like rugby league in American football.
Here’s our Hayne Plane, the Minto Kid, a “Westie”, a battler who grew up in a housing commission and bought his mum a house. And by extension he is rugby league. And he’s killing it in America. America! Rugby league struggles for relevance in Melbourne. Yet a rugby league player is rostered onto the 53-man list of American footballers who’ll represent San Francisco 49ers.
Here’s a thing about rugby league: the game is actually quite insecure. Rugby league people insist, in all seriousness, that rugby league is the greatest game of all, that it’s superior to all other games. Yet rugby league in the grand schema of global sport is ranked near badminton and tug-of-war. And rugby league knows it, doesn’t understand why (it’s the greatest game of all, after all) and sort of resents it. It’s one reason rugby league hates Americans calling Hayne a “rugby” player. Because “rugby” denotes “union”. And rugby league doesn’t like “union”.
How about Hayne though? In rugby league he was one the best and funkiest freestyle players there’s ever been, a man who could burn about the field hot-pronking like a hairy goat on fire. Check him out, those feet, the unpredictable lateral movement. And that fend! What a ripper. Like a cattle prod. Zap! Yow! Go away, man-beast, for I wish to continue running in this and several other directions, quite fast. And from that base of rugby league and tooling about with his mates in Minto he’s become a running gun in American football. And that’s never been done.
There’s also the “freak factor” of the code-hopper. It’s interesting to see how he goes. It’s like when Anthony Mundine became a boxer, Wendell Sailor crossed to rugby and Israel Folau and Karmichael Hunt swapped to Australian rules. They attracted eyeballs to televisions like it was the Jabberwocky Olympics. It almost didn’t matter if they were middling talents in their chosen sports. It was the freak thing. You had to watch.
Look at Andrew Johns, perhaps the greatest league player there ever was. Old Joey flirted like a sex-kitten with the Waratahs and scored what appears a job for life in rugby league. Johns was too big to fail. Flush with the success of these manoeuvres his management trotted Johns out for an ill-advised hit of cricket with the Sydney Sixers. It was a circus, shameless PR. And Johns was shielded from the strike by Simon Katich – in the final over of a T20 game – lest a Redback kill him. It was as if country and western star Troy Cassar-Daley were playing third tuba in the Sydney Philharmonic. It might not be pretty. But it got a few in for a look.
Hayne, though, is all style, all substance. And you have to watch. He’s going gangbusters. Had he gone over a dud and been bashed up, packed off, sent home in a body bag there’d be no more story. Or at least it would’ve morphed into which NRL club or rugby code he’d come back to. But he’s gone brilliantly in a sport that so many experts declared was so different to rugby league that swapping over was nigh-on insurmountable.
But no worries! Our Jarryd, infused with a jambalaya of genes and Jesus was always confident. Hayne believed. Much like Hillsong Church folk – of which Hayne is one – believe that being wealthy is a sign God loves them, Hayne says he’s a 49er because God made it happen.
And good luck to him. Believe it, baby. It’s a great story. The Hayne Train Who Got On A Plane and became a San Francisco 49er. And he’s done it playing what looks to us like rugby league. And rugby league is justifiably proud that one of theirs has made it and can showcase a rugby league man to the world. And perhaps that’s validation of sorts.
