Jarryd Hayne has been many things over the past 15 years. Now he is a convicted criminal
Cue the cliches about the “Hayne Plane” crash landing. About lofty heights and rarified air and falls from grace. Jarryd Hayne has been many things over the past 15 years and now he is a convicted criminal, guilty of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
Long gone are the days when Hayne was an enigmatic specimen many fans did not understand, but all wanted to copy. A Hillsong celebrity who in 2016 partied with an alleged Hells Angels bikie and, just as he had finished Snapchatting his “cash money fam, cash money, give me a fucking cigarette” video, fell victim to a pornography mishap at a high school.
He first made a name for himself as a western Sydney housing commission kid so coolly adept with a ball that Parramatta coach Jason Taylor played him at 18.
That was 2006, and his 17 tries in 16 games were the difference between the Eels missing the finals and making them. State of Origin and Test call-ups promptly followed, and then a $2m contract extension in 2008.
The rest is history – and now it actually is. For on Monday, when the now 33-year-old was found guilty, much of what came before suddenly felt more akin to a cautionary tale than an achievement.
In truth, Hayne’s downfall was well underway by the time he quit the NFL to play rugby sevens, only to return to the NRL and conclude his career with a whimper.
His NRL longevity was interrupted by “dreams” that turned out to be brief side-projects that had already tarnished a legacy of brilliance before a Newcastle woman reported him to police.
With the San Francisco 49ers, he made it big and did it fast. A pre-season debut included a 53-yard run with his second touch of the ball. Colin Kaepernick called him “a phenomenal athlete”.
Media outlets struggling with the industry-wide financial squeeze found reason enough to send correspondents to the states to document at close quarters the rise and rise of a homegrown hero making it where Australians – and most Americans – fail.
Ultimately, he could not live up to the hype. He made the 53-man final roster in September 2015 and was dropped the following month after fumbling a punt return. He managed to be re-promoted, only to retire from the sport after 14 months.
The reason? To audition for Fiji’s rugby sevens side. Hayne played five games at the London Sevens at Twickenham in May 2016. He was not a part of the squad that won Olympic gold in Rio some three months later.
So back to Australia he came. Having promised Eels fans any NRL return would be to them, he signed with the Gold Coast Titans for a salary befitting the glitter strip. There was eventually a blue-and-gold homecoming with 15 semi-stirring appearances.
To this day, Hayne is on all the NRL’s highlight reels. He really isthat guy. But, as it turns out, he is also the other guy, the one epitomising the unpalatable stereotype of men’s rugby league as a cesspool of misogyny.
As ever, stereotypes are rarely allencompassing phenomena, and there was a time he did not fit this particular bill. Indeed, his 2009 season – a return to form at fullback featuring six straight man-of-the-match awards – remains one of the most impressive individual stretches in the game to date.
That same year he was courted for millions of dollars by AFL clubs craving his all-too-rare combination of speed, power and that less tangible quality of on-field charisma.
In late August 2019, a decade almost to the day after prime minister Kevin Rudd presented Hayne with the 2009 Dally M medal (the first of two), Hayne settled a US civil case in which it was alleged he had sexually assaulted a woman in California in 2015.
Authorities failed to gather enough evidence to proceed with criminal charges but the woman sued the footballer in the US district court for sexual battery, battery, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.
Hayne “unequivocally and vehemently” denied the accusations through his lawyers in Sydney but ultimately settled out of court for an undisclosed “mutually agreeable” amount. By then, in mid-2019, he had already been charged with two alleged counts of rape of a woman on her bed.
On the nose since charges were laid in 2018, court dates have been the only recent public fixtures on Hayne’s calendar.
In November 2020 there was the first trial, at which the 26-year-old victim testified he had sexually assaulted her on her bed in Newcastle with his hands and mouth and left her bleeding from the genitals. Then the jury was discharged, having failed to reach a unanimous or majority verdict after two days of deliberations.
A new jury found Hayne guilty on Monday after a retrial in March with sentencing set down for early May. The judge said a jail term was “inevitable”.