Mike Colman: Jarryd Hayne saga far from finished

NOT everyone interpreted Jarryd Hayne’s group message to his Titans teammates the same way as club captain Ryan James.

I’M not sure I interpreted the group-chat message from Jarryd Hayne to his Titans teammates the same way as club captain Ryan James.

James told reporters that he read the message from Hayne as “we’re expecting him back”.

The headlines went further, trumpeting that Hayne had told teammates “he will be staying on the Gold Coast”.

But did he? According to James, all Hayne had said was that he “hadn’t spoken to anyone yet”.

Seems to me the key word there is “yet”.

Some reports suggest Jarryd Hayne is staying on the Gold Coast. Picture: Mike Batterham

Given that he is tied up with Fiji in the Rugby League World Cup and his manager Wayne Beavis recently retired, leaving him without representation, you wouldn’t expect him to have spoken to anyone. Yet.

The $1.2 million-a-season question is how incoming Titans coach Garth Brennan read the message. Or even more interesting, which interpretation he would prefer.

While he has said all the right things about looking forward to working with Hayne, it surely wouldn’t have missed his attention that his team’s biggest earner is also one of sport’s biggest coach-killers.

TITANS NEWS: Hayne’s promise to teammates

FUTURE: Peats tagged as potential leader

This week I had a chat to the always informative and entertaining Ken Arthurson.

At 88, the former ARL and Manly boss doesn’t get along to many games these days but, as a Gold Coast resident, he takes a close interest in the Titans and doesn’t like what he is seeing.

“The one I felt sorry for was Neil Henry,” Arko told me.

“He’s a good bloke and good coach. He’d still have a job if it wasn’t for Jarryd Hayne – and he’s not the only one.

“If Hayne had passed the ball in the second Origin game, as he should have, NSW would have won the series and Laurie Daley wouldn’t have got the sack.”

Jarryd Hayne is playing for Fiji in the World Cup. Picture: Shae Beplate

I added in San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Tomsula, who took a huge gamble by signing Hayne for the 2015 season.

When Hayne fumbled a punt on his first touch in the NFL, it was the start of a downward slope for both of them.

Tomsula was punted at the end of the season and Hayne headed to the Fiji rugby sevens team, whose coach Ben Ryan omitted him from the Olympic gold medal-winning side before they headed to Rio.

Maybe Ryan, who is still coaching the team, dodged a bullet. Maybe Brennan will do the same.

No matter which way you read it, this saga isn’t finished. Yet.

WOWSERS NEED TO GET A LIFE

ON Wednesday morning I heard a Brisbane radio host blasting the “shocking, debauchery” of the crowd at Flemington on Melbourne Cup Day.

Nothing new about that. Tut-tutting the punters’ behaviour is as much a part of the Cup Carnival as having a bet and wearing a hat.

In these days of social media, even more so.

Racegoers are seen on the ground after the Melbourne Cup.

Every year you can hear the online news editors getting their coverage sorted: “Jimmy, you get the winning jockey; Bill, you get the trainer and connections, and you other 40 reporters, each grab a photographer and your iPhones and get the drunks.”

And why not? As a proud member of a famously nondrinking, non-carousing, non-debauching industry, I – like the morning radio host – am appalled by the way people let their hair down at our country’s National Party Day.

And never have I felt as ashamed as this year.

According to a report I read, “three people were evicted for bad behaviour and two were arrested for drunkenness, while security guards removed four other intoxicated patrons”.

That’s a total of nine people out of a crowd of 95,000, meaning that 94,991 behaved themselves.

What is this country coming to? We had more arrests at my 21st.

Not only that, the photos I saw online were tepid to say the least. Nothing to go viral there. Hardly anything to raise a sniffle.

Obviously the girl filmed riding the wheelie bin last year stayed home – or went back to New Zealand – more’s the pity.

I liked that girl. I heard her interviewed and she sounded like a lot of fun.

Unlike the self-righteous, hypocritical self-appointed fun police who ride their soap box every Melbourne Cup Day with all the single-minded aggression and determination of the winning jockey.

Originally published as Mike Colman: Jarryd Hayne saga far from finished