Hayne ‘scapegoat’ for team’s failures
ONE of the Gold Coast Titans’ most influential sponsors says Jarryd Hayne has been made a scapegoat in the turmoil surrounding coach Neil Henry.
In a scathing attack on the club and National Rugby League, TripADeal founders Norman Black and Richard Johnston revealed:
● Several players are dissatisfied not only with Henry but other members of the coaching staff.
● The coaching staff’s treatment of Hayne and other players was not proper and TripADeal’s relationship with the club had “taken a turn”.
● Apart from a pre-season fine being leaked to the media, he had never heard Hayne speak poorly of Henry.
● The NRL, as owners of the Titans, also bear responsibility for how the affair has played out.
● Henry was completely across Hayne being signed by the Titans.
As a major sponsor, TripADeal pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to the Titans, including a marquee player allowance that helped keep Kane Elgey at the club and about $400,000 to Hayne’s contract.
Managing director and cofounder of the Byron Baybased company, Black said no one had emerged well from the messy saga.
“Regardless of what takes place with Jarryd Hayne, TripADeal’s commitment has always been with Gold Coast, with the Titans,” Black said.
“The Titans are much bigger than Jarryd Hayne but I’d be lying if I didn’t say there’s a fair bit of disappointment with the methods and how Jarryd has been treated.
“He is literally being used as a scapegoat for the whole performance of the team, the coaching staff, the whole thing.
“You can say the same thing for how it’s played out for Neil Henry. It’s probably totally unfair for Neil to be held in the world he’s been living in right now.
“What gets lost in all of this is Neil Henry, Jarryd Hayne and all those other guys in that rugby league team are people, they’re human beings and you just don’t treat human beings as commodities,” he said.
“Graham (CEO Graham Annesley) can do the best he can, Rebecca (chair Rebecca Frizelle) can do the best she can but there’s the NRL at the top of the tree pulling those levels to how far they can make a decision and how they can deal with things.”
Black said Annesley had kept TripADeal informed throughout the saga and it did not expect a voice in the boardroom.
However, the situation had affected the company’s relationship with the club.
“We’re not going to be holding a gun to their head saying Jarryd stays or we go. It’s more how this whole thing has played out. What has been a wonderful association to date, has certainly taken a turn.
“Don’t for a minute think that sour taste is related to the losses, because rugby league has good and bad times. But I have a pretty huge issue with the welfare and how employees are treated in a workplace and if Jarryd Hayne was in any other workplace right now, there would be pretty serious ramifications for his employer.
“(To insinuate) that Jarryd is somehow orchestrating the fall of Neil, I just know that is not true.
“I know there’s a number of dissatisfied players in that team. There’s a fair bit of dissatisfaction with Neil, his supporting staff and some of the processes that have gone on there.”
TO INSINUATE THAT JARRYD IS SOMEHOW ORCHESTRATING THE FALL OF NEIL, I JUST KNOW THAT IS NOT TRUE NORMAN BLACK
THE Titans sent a message to members last night, with chief executive Graham Annesley speaking directly to fans in a bid to cut through the mass of information in the public domain about the skirmish between coach Neil Henry and star player Jarryd Hayne.
The embattled NRL club sent a text with a link to a video from Annesley speaking directly to fans.
In it, he says that despite the media coverage and commentary this week, “the board are the only ones with all the information” and they would make a considered decision on the future of Hayne and Henry in the next week.
“Given results on the field over the last few weeks and of course some of the public issues that have arisen over the past few days, I thought it was important to speak to you directly given your emotional and financial commitment to the club,” Annesley said in the message.
“There’s been a lot of public comment, a lot of it has been personal comment, particularly from media commentators and there’s been a fair amount of misinformation also in the public arena.
“The club, unfortunately, is not in a position to engage in that public debate.
“There are many issues we have to consider and the board are currently considering. Of course, we’re monitoring the views of our members, but even in those cases, views and sentiments vary pretty widely.
“The board are the only ones with all the information.
“They take their responsibility seriously as there are potential contractual, financial and credibility ramifications that have to be carefully considered. It’s not as simple as making a popular decision and ignoring the consequences.”