Jarryd Hayne's terrible, terrible secret

Jarryd Hayne has a secret.

It’s a dark and terrible one, and one he is desperate for you not to know, but sadly for his attempts at concealment, it is one he just can’t help revealing.

His newly-announced return to the Parramatta Eels makes any further attempts at subterfuge futile. His secret is out, and everyone knows.

Jarryd Hayne’s secret is this: he cares.

Hayne has worked quite hard in the last few years to convince you that he doesn’t care. That is, he doesn’t care about anything but himself. He wants you to believe that he is driven by only two factors: money and ego.

He’ll go to great lengths to make his story seem plausible. He’ll sign up with the Gold Coast Titans, parading before us his self-declared greed. They offered the most cash, so of course I’m going to them, he’ll tell us, for I am a cold-eyed mercenary. A gun for hire. I go where the gravy train takes me, and I will sell my wares to the highest bidder every time.

Before that, he even travelled across the world and tried his hand at the NFL. Look at me, he cried: I am concerned only with self-aggrandisement. Team success? Communal achievement? These things mean nothing to me, for I am Jarryd Hayne, and the only thing that rivals money in my affections is the chance to be the centre of attention.

And if it gets hard, or boring, I’ll bail on it, because I am Jarryd Hayne and I am shallow and feckless and I do what I want without regard for any other.

(Photo: AP)

It’s been a good performance, I’ll grant him that. The preening, the posing, the pocketing of fat cheques. A casual observer could easily be fooled into believing that Hayne was the Platonic ideal of the selfish modern sportsman. When he hits the field, anyone might buy into his carefully-constructed persona as a bloodless athletic businessman, willing to perform only to further bloat his groaning bank balance and fearfully swollen head.

But we’re onto you, Jarryd.

We know why the NFL stint ended in damp anti-climax, and why your time with the Titans was restless and miserable. And we know why you’ve gone back to Parramatta. We know that you are not the very model of a modern mercenary.

Because when you look at the career of Jarryd Hayne, really look at it, something leaps out and slaps you in the face.

When Hayne went to America to play their bizarro football, he showed promise, but found it impossible to stick with. When he played for Gold Coast, he was hailed as a saviour, but could only rarely muster anything close to elite form.

And yet, he has shown us time again what he is capable of. When playing in a blue jersey, for New South Wales, in the State of Origin contests that place passion and desire at the centre and are merciless on anyone who isn’t putting in their whole heart and soul, he has been, time and again, phenomenal.

In the Blues’ only series win of the last more-than-a-decade, he was the difference. In numerous defeats, he’s been their one shining light.

Likewise, when playing for the Eels, the club that took him in as a kid, in the Western Sydney heartland where he grew up, he was the beating heart of the team: its most electric performer and inspirational presence. Every player on the team walked taller for having Hayne alongside him.

When the Eels made a gallant charge towards the premiership, it was Hayne who made it possible. When the Eels struggled in the lower reaches of the ladder, it was Hayne who made the fans’ lives bearable.

(AAP Image/Action Photographics, Robb Cox)

And now, this year, he came to the World Cup, representing Fiji, birthplace of his father, home of a cultural heritage he bears proudly. This time he was an elder statesman in a team filled with exuberant youth and brash ambition. And he led them in a bold and thrilling assault on the world title, no less superb for eventually coming to an end.

In all the varied escapades of his career, Hayne has demonstrated one simple truth. When he’s representing a cause that means something to him, a team that he is proud of, a jersey that makes him feel he belongs, he can dominate any opposition, can do the near-impossible.

When he’s playing for a club because it wrote the biggest cheque, or in a sport he only took up to make himself more famous, he can’t muster the true greatness that lives within.

Jarryd Hayne is no footballing sellsword. He wants us to think he is, but we can finally see through the facade of the twenty-first century avaricious rolling stone, and see a player who is as old-school as he is brilliant. Jarryd Hayne is a player built from passion, loyalty and a desire to be part of something bigger than himself.

You can stop pretending, Jarryd. We know you care. And it’s really rather beautiful.