Golden boy’s long fall into shadows
Sex assault allegation hanging over two-time Dally M medallist could mark end of mercurial code-hopper’s storied career
Rugby league legend Phil Gould made a harsh but prescient call about Jarryd Hayne earlier this month as the star confronted an uncertain NRL future.
Asked where he thought Hayne would end up as he attempted to squeeze more money out of the Parramatta Eels — or a rival club — Gould was emphatic. “Probably unhappy. Unsettled. Unfulfilled,” he wrote on Twitter. “At his best, he’s a talent,” Gould added. “Can definitely win you games. 2009 was a long time ago though.”
The year Hayne emerged as the best player in rugby league feels like a lifetime ago given everything that’s happened since.
It’s not as though his life had been incident-free at that point — he was shot at by a gunman in Kings Cross the year before — but you could fill several books with the ups and downs of the now 30-year-old’s time since then.
The most recent low — Hayne faces up to two decades behind bars if he’s found guilty of an alleged sexual assault of a 26-year-old woman on NRL grand final day — could be the final nail in the coffin of the code-hopper’s career.
He was talented, ambitious and moral, born to a single mum at a southwest Sydney housing commission. But the Hayne Plane flew too close to the sun, and the golden child risks going up in smoke.
It was his ill-fated entrance into the notoriously hard-drinking,
troubled heart of the San Francisco 49ers that marked the start of a bitter decline for one of Australia’s most beloved athletes.
Current and former 49ers players’ brushes with the law have provided regular fodder this decade in what’s been a tumultuous era for one of the NFL’s most storied franchises.
Thirteen team members were arrested in a six-year period on charges including drink driving, illegal possession of a weapon, hit and run, disorderly conduct, sexual battery, driving under the influence and vandalism.
Defensive tackle Ray McDonald was arrested on suspicion of domestic abuse after police said his pregnant fiancee showed “visible injuries” of sexual abuse. Charges were dropped in April 2017, when the alleged victim exercised her legal right not to press charges.
A group of Niners all lived in the affluent San Jose neighbourhood of Silver Creek, 15 minutes’ drive from where Hayne lived in his time with the team. Police were regularly called to their wild late-night parties, and tight end Aldon Smith drove into a tree at 7am one Thursday morning.
“It’s a risk-reward business,” former general manager and the man who signed Hayne, Trent Baalke, said. “There are other
times when the character of an individual coming into the NFL was sterling. But they end up being guys who get in trouble.
“It’s not always the guys that come into the league with a chequered past that leave the league with a chequered past. It can be the opposite.”
Hayne fell into the second camp it seems — in 2016 a woman in her mid-20s accused him of raping her at his apartment in December 2015.
Hayne has unequivocally denied the allegations, which were investigated by San Jose Police but did not result in charges because of a reported lack of evidence.
The woman is now pursuing damages in a civil court, with a trial set for 2020.
Hayne’s life has been a whirlwind since California.
He played for Fiji’s Rugby Sevens side in an attempt to make it to the Rio Olympics but missed selection in the gold medalwinning squad. Soon after he met Australian Amellia Bonnici, reportedly on Instagram, and the pair started dating. Hayne, then reviving his NRL career with the Gold Coast Titans, was shocked when the 25-year-old announced not long after they met that she was pregnant and expecting his child by the end of the year.
He moved her into his Gold Coast apartment and their daughter, Beliviah Ivy, was born in December 2016.
The following November, Hayne confirmed he would leave the Titans and return to Sydney on compassionate grounds, to be closer to his girlfriend and child, who were now living in Forster near family.
He reportedly took a hefty pay cut to return to his old club, Parramatta, hoping to get his head down and rebuild his reputation.
The Eels had been hopeful at least one other player could be picked up by another club to fit Hayne into next year’s salary cap.
A two-time Dally M medallist, Hayne is one of the biggest names in the NRL thanks largely to his magical run to help Parramatta to the 2009 grand final.
He has played 11 tests for Australia and 23 State of Origins for NSW and scored 121 tries in 214 NRL games.
He finished the 2018 season strongly but with sexual assault cases to defend on two separate continents — and strict bail conditions related to his charges in Australia — his playing days may be over.
At his best, [Hayne’s] a talent. Can definitely win you games. 2009 was a long time ago though. Phil Gould, rugby league legend