Jarryd Hayne

Jarryd Lee Hayne (born 15 February 1988) is a former professional rugby league footballer who last played for the Parramatta Eels in the National Rugby League.

Rugby league career

Hayne began playing junior rugby league for Campbelltown City, East Campbelltown and Cabramatta at the age of six.

2000s

Hayne made his NRL debut with the Parramatta Eels at 18 years of age on 19 May 2006 against the Penrith Panthers at CUA Stadium. Jason Taylor, who was making his first grade coaching debut, chose him on the wing. Taylor later said, "Everyone knew his talent, it wasn't just me." Hayne quickly made an impression on the competition scoring 17 tries within 16 games in his debut season. This tally included a personal best of four tries against the Newcastle Knights in a 46–12 win to Parramatta. His excellent try scoring ability saw him rewarded with the 2006 Dally M 'Rookie of the Year' award and a spot on the Kangaroos Squad. He was also named the 2006 Parramatta Eels season's rookie of the year.

He started the season at centre but later moved to fullback due to an injury to Luke Burt and scored 12 tries, including the winning try against the New Zealand Warriors in the First Qualifying Final of the 2007 NRL Finals series. Following Parramatta's close victory against Brisbane in July 2007, Hayne was accused of diving to impede Brisbane's momentum after a heavy hit from Sam Thaiday. Then Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett said "You talk about ethics in our sport. You talk about not laying on the ground" and then claimed Hayne should be cited for "bringing the game into disrepute." Hayne denied that he dived to deliberately impede Brisbane's momentum and claimed that he was genuinely hurt after the collision with Thaiday. He was never found guilty of any wrongdoing by the NRL Judiciary. In the 2007 Grand Final qualifier, Hayne was again accused of diving when he stayed down and received a penalty for a high shot. Players also accused Hayne of winking after the incident, Clint Newton saying "To lay down like he did and then get up and wink, I don't think that's in the spirit of the game. Straight after he got up, he winked at Dallas Johnson – facing us." Hayne denied the accusations, saying, "I don't engage in that shit, I just score tries and make people happy".

Before the start of the 2008 season, Hayne was on a night out with St George player Mark Gasnier when a fight broke out between them and another group. Hayne and Gasnier were subsequently shot at by a gunman in a passing taxi. In the coming years, Hayne has said that the shooting incident changed his life and was a turning point in his career.

Parramatta announced Hayne had signed with the club for a $2M extension. On 15 September, he was officially announced as Rugby League's fastest man, after becoming the highest placed league player in the Gatorade Bolt, although other noted league speedsters such as David Mead, Michael Jennings, Brett Stewart and Kevin Gordon did not participate.

At the start of the 2009 NRL season, Hayne played at five-eighth with very limited success. Hayne was moved back to his preferred position of fullback just before the round 8 clash with the North Queensland Cowboys. His return to form at fullback prompted Dean Ritchie of Daily Telegraph to call Hayne "the most gifted Parramatta player since the great Brett Kenny." Hayne's performances for Parramatta stepped up to another level as the 2009 season progressed. His influence on the game from fullback was lauded by many pundits as the Eels made a late season surge. From Round 19 to Round 24, he won six consecutive Man of the Match awards. He was described as "the best player in any code of football in Australia" by Phil Gould. Hayne has won the Dally M Medals for Player of the Year and Fullback of the Year respectively. He became one of the youngest winners of the prestigious award and only the second fullback in history to be crowned Dally M Player of the Year. Hayne escaped a grade two charge after coming into contact with the head of Bryson Goodwin, sliding in with his knees to stop Goodwin in the act of scoring a try during the Preliminary Final against the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Hayne pleaded guilty to a grade one charge, however a grade two charge would have resulted in Hayne missing the 2009 NRL Grand Final. Hayne ran 4,429 metres with the ball in 2009, more than any other player in the competition. At the start of November 2009 while on tour with the Kangaroos, Hayne was left out as one of the six nominees for the Golden Boot Award (Best Rugby League Player in the World) despite him being the year's Dally M Medal winner, Dally M fullback of the year, NSW State of Origin player of the series, International Federation player of the year, Parramatta player of the season and Rugby League Week player of the year in 2009. That award went to Melbourne Storm Greg Inglis. He was named the Fiji Bati player of the year for 2009. Jarryd Hayne's performance for the Parramatta Eels in the 2009 grand final against the Melbourne Storm was largely viewed in Australian and New Zealand media as disappointing. Journalist Josh Massoud, writing for The Daily Telegraph wrote, "For reasons only known to the god he recently discovered, Eels superstar Hayne failed to contest the ball." Prior to the game the media focused much on Hayne's match-up with the incumbent Australian, Queensland and Melbourne Storm fullback Billy Slater which was touted as "one of the most anticipated individual match-ups in Grand Final history". Phil Gould said " Hayne was just shut out of the game, his performance wasn't actually that bad".

Hayne's 2009 season has since been described as one of the greatest individual seasons in Australian rugby league history. Such was the euphoria surrounding Parramatta's run to the 2009 grand final that the then NSW Premier Nathan Rees pledged to name one of the new trains which were due to be rolled out next year on The Sydney network "The Hayne Train" if Parramatta were to have won the match. The train was to be painted blue and gold and run on the western line.

2010s

For the 2010 ANZAC Test, Hayne was selected to play for Australia on the wing in their victory against New Zealand.

Being named as co-captain of Parramatta in 2013, Hayne has had an impressive season, particularly with regards to his goal line defence. This earned him a call up for New South Wales in the first game of the 2013 Origin Series at his preferred position of fullback after incumbent Brett Stewart was injured. Hayne scored the first try of the series for NSW and was instrumental once again in their only victory of the series.

In 2014 Hayne started the season with his most consistent display of rugby league, leading the Dally M medal rankings after 10 Rounds. He was selected for New South Wales in his favoured fullback position for Game One of the 2014 State of Origin series. He produced a man of the match performance, setting up one try and scoring one to deliver New South Wales a 12–8 win in Brisbane and a 1–0 series lead. During the annual 2014 players poll, where 100 players from the 16 clubs are interviewed, Hayne was voted as 'best in the game,' the first NSW player since Andrew Johns won the honour in 2006. In Round 22 of the season, playing against the Canberra Raiders, Hayne scored another 50m solo try to bring up his 100th career try. He became only the third player behind Luke Burt and Brett Kenny to score 100 tries for Parramatta. In Round 23 of the season Hayne topped his 2006 try scoring effort, reaching his 18th for the season against the Bulldogs. Hayne finished the season as the NRL's leading try-scorer with 20 for the season. On 29 September 2014, on the Dally M Awards night, Hayne and North Queensland Cowboys skipper Johnathan Thurston were the joint winners of the 2014 Dally M Player of the Year Award after the most thrilling countdown in the award's history. For Hayne, it is his second Dally M Player of the Year award following his win in 2009 and also claimed the Fullback of the Year and Best Representative Player awards, respectively.

Return to league

On 2 August 2016, after his time in American football and rugby sevens, it was announced that Hayne would be returning to the NRL, signing a two-year contract with the Gold Coast Titans. His contract was touted to be as worth as much as $1.2 million a season, the most any NRL player has been paid in one year. Hayne made himself available for immediate selection and made his debut for the Titans against the New Zealand Warriors on 7 August 2016. In Round 22, in his second game back, Hayne kicked the match-winning field goal in the Titans' 19-18 win against the Wests Tigers. In The 2017 NRL Season, Hayne was involved in a long running player-coach feud with Gold Coast coach Neil Henry. After months of media speculation and poor performances on the field by Hayne and the rest of The Gold Coast side the board had an emergency meeting to discuss the future of Hayne and Henry. On 20 August 2017, the board decided to terminate Henry effective immediately. Later in the year on 30 November, after asking for a release from the Titans, Hayne joined his old club, the Parramatta Eels, announcing it will be a 1 year deal.

On 11 March 2018, Hayne played his 200th game in The NRL which also was his first game back for Parramatta. Parramatta went on to lose the match 24-14. In round 3 against Cronulla, Hayne was taken off the field after 30 minutes with a hip injury that would rule him out for the next 4 weeks.

Hayne returned to the Parramatta side for their round 7 game against Manly but was taken off the field just 10 minutes into the match after re-injuring his hip. Parramatta went on to win their first game of the season 44-10. On 9 June 2018, Hayne returned to the starting side and scored two tries for Parramatta in their 20-14 victory over North Queensland.

On 11 August 2018, Hayne scored a hat-trick in Parramatta's 40-4 victory over St George.

Hayne finished the year with a club best 10 tries from 15 appearances, as well as topping the Parramatta charts for line breaks and tackle busts.

On August 21, 2019, Hayne was voted as one of the best players of the decade in the NRL team of the decade announcement which spanned from the 2010 to 2019 seasons. Premiership-winning coaches Phil Gould, Craig Bellamy, Trent Robinson and Ricky Stuart were also part of the panel along with Hall of Famers Peter Sterling, Darren Lockyer, Danny Buderus and Laurie Daley.

Wikipedia