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Jarryd Hayne made his return to Rugby League two weeks ago amidst a storm of who, what, where, when, and how, finally signing with the Gold Coast Titans.
Hayne managed to simultaneously excite the entirety of the Gold Coast, while cheesing off nearly all of Western Sydney.
The decision not to re-sign with the Parramatta Eels is one that has copped a lot of heat, especially from the Eels fans themselves who saw Parramatta as Hayne’s rightful home, a place that he owed his career to.
However right or wrong that may be, Hayne has revealed that he simply wasn’t given an offer to take. The constraints surrounding the Parramatta club very nearly meant the superstar fullback wasn’t going to return at all.
While Hayne was always going to sign with someone, Parramatta or not, the man himself believes that situations like this are serious issues for the competition and can deter the best football players in the world from coming to the NRL.
Is the famed “war chest” the solution? Hayne certainly thinks so.
In a recent interview with Nathan Hindmarsh following his field goal heroics over the Tigers, Hayne spoke of the need to improve the game he has come back to and how to do it.
“If you want to be the greatest game of all, you need the greatest players of all” said the former 49er.
Hayne believes that the NRL’s secret monetary reserves should definitely be used to get the best players there are, but the NRL’s ideology on the situation is all wrong.
“The mentality to sell the games is like that, the mentality to get players from other codes is not like that”.
Even bringing up giants of world rugby Dan Carter, Matt Giteau and even Jonny Wilkinson as prime examples, noting that the NRL should have been able to use a similar “war chest” scenario to lure them into rugby league years ago.
Ever the humble man, Hayne went on to talk about how the NRL needs to draw in big name players like himself, men that can draw the crowds, sell the merchandise and the memberships.
“It’s a business now,” he says.
“When the NRL begins to understand that, that’s when they’re going to grow the game dramatically.”
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