https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/ho...w-playing-for-his-legacy-20180309-p4z3pg.html
Home and happy, Jarryd Hayne now playing for his legacy
Jarryd Hayne is sitting in a cafe at Bondi Junction.
The human headline has just returned from his NFL stint and speculation about his next career move is at fever pitch, which is why he’s chosen one of the booths out the back. He is waiting for his mate and confidante, Hayden Knowles, to arrive and the last thing he needs is to be seen sipping a latte in Roosters territory with one of their staffers.
So when Knowles walks in, decked out in Roosters kit, Hayne goes spare.
“He made me take my Roosters shirt off,” Knowles recalled.
“It was no secret that the Roosters were interested in him at the time. Everywhere he went, someone spotted him and it was another headline.
“He sat me down and basically told me he was going to Parra. So I went back to the Roosters and told them, ‘We’ve got no chance, Parra is where his heart is at’.
“A week later, he was at the Titans.”
Hayne has finally made his way home. The 30-year-old is, belatedly, fulfilling what was trumpeted as a ‘lifetime agreement’ to return to the blue and golds. He has sacrificed $700,000 to do so in an acknowledgement that, for the first time, Hayne needs Parramatta more than Parramatta needs Hayne.
“People often skip past that. You ask anyone whether they would give up $700k to move jobs and go somewhere else,” said another of Hayne’s closest mates, Eels skipper Tim Mannah.
“That’s a huge sign of faith in Brad Arthur and the club.
“He always knew he wanted to come back. He knows he belongs here.
“Over the last couple of years you could tell he wasn’t really comfortable with where he’s at, but being back here around his family and friends, he looks himself.”
Everything Hayne does is newsworthy. When he goes to Kings Cross, shots are fired in his direction. A day at the beach results in him pulling an Irish backpacker from the surf. It’s hardly a surprise that his first game back would be a milestone match.
“A lot of the teams at Parramatta revolved around Hayne and they were disappointed when he left the club,” said Ricky Stuart, who not only coached him at club and Origin level but also made him an Eels captain.
“That’s all in the past now and he has a great opportunity to pay that respect back to them through performance.
“He can now finish off where he first started.”
What happens now is how Hayne will be remembered. Many felt that when he moved on, Parramatta did as well. The team’s winning percentage with Hayne in it was 45.5 per cent. Without him, the figure climbs to 51.4 per cent. He may no longer be the man, just a centre, but is always the centre of attention.
“It’s an amazing thing, the obsession with Jarryd Hayne,” said TripADeal founder Norm Black, the personal sponsor who shelled out $400,000 a season to lure him to the glitter strip.
“We will certainly miss the media coverage that came with Jarryd. There's no doubt he is a different cat, but there’s no malice in him.
“He lives and breathes Parramatta. He could have copped $1.2 million to stay at the Titans. If he was a mercenary, he would have stayed and taken the money.
“We reflect back on that journey with him and we look at it in a positive light.”
It’s unlikely Gold Coast officials share the sentiment. Not all publicity is good publicity. In hindsight, ending up anywhere but at Parramatta was a mistake. In belatedly coming back, without the burden of captaincy or expectation of being or wearing the No.1, Hayne has a chance to finish on his terms.
“His comments have been around the team and how he can best help the team now. That’s a different approach for him to take,” said another of his former Eels mentors, Michael Hagan.
“He’s in a different point in his career now. It’s a bit back to the future, coming back to where he started and played most of his junior footy.
“He went to Westfield Sports High and is a genuine product of Western Sydney. It’s certainly appropriate that he finds himself back where he started.
“There’s no question that Parramatta fans hold him in high regard with the number of games he’s played for them and getting them into the grand final in 2009. It’s a fitting way for him to celebrate 200 games.”
Some Parramatta fans are still unsure what to make of it all. It’s unlikely Hayne, or anyone else for that matter, will ever reproduce the form that earned him his first Dally M medal. Of more concern is the way he left the Gold Coast a smouldering ruin. But more than anything, the Eels faithful have no sense of the man. For all the words written about ‘The Plane’, few understand what makes him tick.
Hayne’s circle of friends is a small one. Before he left for his NFL expedition, he held a farewell dinner. Those in attendance included current Eels Mannah, Michael Jennings and Tony Williams. It’s a pointer as to why he was so keen to come home.
Another mate, Bryce Poisel, has long been on the scene and was literally on Hayne’s journey. Hayne flew Poisel across to watch him play for the 49ers, but the latter knew something was amiss when he hit the tarmac. Still in the plane, he turned on his phone and dozens of messages immediately pinged in. Before he had a chance to check them, a frantic Hayne was on the line, breaking bad news. The 49ers had waived him. He never played another NFL match.
“I still remember the day, it was Halloween when it happened,” Poisel said.
“People have short memories. He’s had as many bad times as good.”
What Poisel said next will surprise. Hayne’s American expedition was filmed almost from start to finish, but this is something the cameras didn’t show.
“One night a week, he would go around San Fran and feed the homeless off his own bat,” Poisel said.
“He saw they had a lot of food left over from their cafeteria, so he asked the chef to box it up. He does things like that that people don’t see.”
The sentiments are echoed by Kevin Naiqama, Hayne’s captain during Fiji’s World Cup campaign.
“It was the first time I got to know him as a person,” Naiqama said.
“We were pretty much roomies for the whole World Cup campaign and it was good to know who Jarryd Hayne was behind the footballer.
“He’s really down to earth, a real nice guy. How he’s perceived in the media, you can’t control that. He is someone I definitely consider a friend right after football.”
Hayne version 2.0 doesn’t need to star at Parramatta, but he must buy in. Those who have played alongside him in his first Eels stint feel that wasn’t always the case. Nathan Hindmarsh has occasionally chipped him publicly, at one point describing him as “frustrating”. There have never been kind words about his work ethic.
However, those close to him believe the best stories are yet to be written.
“When he desperately wants to do something, he does it,” Knowles said.
“He really wanted to go back to Parra, that’s why it will work.”
When he walked out on the Eels, officials took down the giant Hayne poster that had hung outside the leagues club. If he is part of a premiership team, it will be hoisted again and remain there forever.
