When Graham Annesley won the seat of Miranda in the NSW Parliament in 2011, he was immediately appointed Minister for Sport and Recreation and destined for a long career in Macquarie Street.
Two years later he was gone, saying he loved the job but didn’t like the politics.
Here we are four years later, and the same Graham Annesley is deeply involved in Gold Coast Titans politics trying to decide the best way to overcome the bad blood between Titans coach Neil Henry and the club’s $1.2 million-a-season man, Jarryd Hayne.
Little wonder Annesley has described the situation as complex – it’s very political.
He was very much the even keel referee during his 244 NRL first grade games, as he was in the finals and Origins, and the Tests he refereed between the Kangaroos and Great Britain.
When he hung up his whistle, Annesley went into NRL administration as the chief operating officer of the NRL, proving he was an excellent administrator.
Then came the political stint, and he’s been CEO of the Titans for the last four years.
The mail is Neil Henry will be punted, but that would be a major blunder, and Annesley isn’t blunder-inclined.
Damn good coaches don’t grow on trees, and Henry is a damn good coach.
Jarryd Hayne is a damn good rugby league footballer, but he’s not pulling his weight in the club, and hasn’t been since pre-season.
(AAP Image/Dan Peled)
Their stand-off is so bad they reportedly don’t even speak to one another, and it’s tearing the club apart.
Having beaten the defending premiers, the Sharks, in Round 19, the Titans have lost their last four 16-24 to the Panthers, 4-27 to the Tigers, 0-54 to the Broncos, and 16-42 to the Dragons.
In those four games, the opposition has thumped the Titans 146-36, scoring 26 tries to seven.
That obviously can’t continue, but it’s Jarryd Hayne who should go, not Neil Henry.
The Jarryd Hayne of today is not the Jarryd Hayne of his Parramatta days between 2006 and 2014.
He was a superstar in the very meaning of the word, rarely turning in an off day.
But there was a growing feeling of invincibility in him, and that there were bigger fields to conquer.
So he tried to make it in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, and that failed, so he used his Fijian ancestry to try and crack the Fijian rugby sevens squad, and that failed as well.
What made the failure worse were the Fijians winning the country’s first Olympic Games medal, and it was gold.
Back where he’s most accepted, Hayne didn’t return to salary cap haunted Parramatta, but surprisingly signed with the Titans.
The comparison is stark with 103 tries in 176 games for Parramatta to just seven tries in 21 games for the Titans.
Throw in two Dally M Medals for player of the season in 2009 and 2013, and the leading try-scorer at the 2013 World Cup, and it’s even more stark.
So Graham Annesley has only one genuine option and that’s getting the Hayne plane to take off and not return.
The interesting question will be if there’s any club willing to give Hayne another crack at the NRL?
Parramatta’s not interested, and even if one surfaces they won’t be offering $1.2 million a season, because he’s not the player he once was – not even close.
Watch this space.
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