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What seemed a pipe dream will soon become a reality for one of the NRL’s greatest athletes. Jarryd Hayne will quench his thirst for a new challenge by heading to America in a quest to etch his name in NFL history.
What makes Hayne’s quest so remarkable is the legacy he has already left in the NRL and the timing of his defection. Let us remember that barely a fortnight has passed since Hayne was crowned the NRL’s best player at the Dally M Awards.
Perhaps Hayne thinks it is a case of ‘now or never’ with his 27th birthday looming in February. NFL is a sport that demands optimal performance in a specific sector. In Hayne’s case as a potential running back, this is speed and power.
With this in mind, despite the awkwardness of leaving a sport in which you are regarded as the face of, the time is right for the Hayne Plane to spread its wings.
While the NRL is losing one of its best, is it a time for mourning? No. This behaviour should be encouraged.
Sonny Bill Williams had been lauded as a hero and sporting god upon his return to the NRL last season, rightfully so, he is a tremendously gifted athlete. I will ignore his origina midnight departure to France, but this inane tall poppy syndrome that accompanies code hoppers in the NRL has tainted the sporting legacies of other NRL greats.
Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau are the two primary cases in point. Both players were admonished over their decision to convert to AFL with the NRL and mainstream media alike labelling them as greedy money grabbers looking to make a quick buck.
When did our society become so despondent toward taking an alternate route or trying something new?
To this day I still do not believe either player decided to join the AFL primarily for financial gain. I like to think it was more for the challenge considering rugby union, a far more similar code to NRL offered near identical money to both players, was initially rejected.
What more was left to be achieved by them? Both had won premierships with their club sides, origin series with Queensland and had donned the victorious green and gold on a multitude of occasions.
You could make a claim that neither player had won the Dally M Player of the Year award but if we approach things seriously Folau would have never won the award playing as a winger or centre. It is quite conceivable that Hunt would have had no chance of winning the award until at least 2011, given Darren Lockyer’s presence and the way Dally M points are counted.
All of these players mentioned are bound by the commonality of their elite athleticism. They are players with broad skill sets who are capable of applying these skills to a number of sports, sports which require athleticism over technicality.
These players were never going to eclipse the feats of Andrew Johns on a rugby league field, but conversely the physical talents of Hayne and co. are such that there are opportunities available for success that Johns could only ever dream of.
While I disagree that the NRL is not challenging enough for Hayne – he is still yet to win an NRL premiership – it is important to remember that competition is the ultimate sport in itself, not rugby league.
For an athlete the competition with one’s self and setting new goals and challenges to achieve and conquer is the true test. We all acknowledge that Hayne is a superior athlete so as sports fans we should be nothing but supportive of him and any other athlete who wishes to test themselves in a different sport.
While I hope he succeeds in the NFL, I hope that we get to see him in the NRL again. God speed Hayne Plane, god speed.
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