Could we be seeing the end of Jarryd Hayne’s NRL career?

THE ongoing drama at the Titans could mark the end of Jarryd Hayne’s NRL career should he leave the club.

GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA — JULY 30: Jarryd Hayne of the Titans reacts during the round 21 NRL match between the Gold Coast Titans and the Wests Tigers at Cbus Super Stadium on July 30, 2017 in Gold Coast, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

IS this the end for Jarryd Hayne?

The ongoing dramas at the Titans might not just be the end of Jarryd Hayne’s time with the club, it could be the end of his time in rugby league.

Neil Henry has forced an ultimatum on the club that’s him or Hayne. Hayne himself has told the club he’ll leave if they want him to go.

His tenure at the Titans was celebrated as the moment Gold Coast left their dysfunction behind — instead, it’s plunged them into squalor and the great moments of last season, like the field goal to beat the Tigers and the return to the finals, seem like they happened decades ago.

The optimism that greeted Hayne on his return also seems like a relic of the past.

CRASH: Titans must show they stand for something

Despite being two years removed from his second Dally M season in 2014, there was an expectation that on return Hayne could still be that player, that he could still take a team on his shoulders and drag them to victory by himself. This expectation continued in his return to State of Origin earlier this year.

Hayne has endured an unhappy season with the Titans.

But to ever expect another 2014 or 2009 is to expect something Hayne cannot really provide.

No player can. The twin peaks of his career are peaks for a reason. If he were to replicate that form every season he’d be the best player of a generation and it wouldn’t be particularly close.

Hayne can’t be the messiah every week and if any fans expected he could be they were only setting themselves up for disappointment.

What could have been expected, and what makes Hayne’s 2017 season so disappointing, is that for the first time in many years he had so much playmaking talent around him that he didn’t need to be 2009 Jarryd Hayne for the Titans to be successful.

The injuries and current struggles might disguise it somewhat, but the Titans still have more talent in key positions that compliment Hayne’s own skillset than many of his Parramatta teams.

Gold Coast did not need Hayne to score all the tries and make all the breaks and be all things for every situation.

The 2014 season seems like a long time ago.

Hayne was to be the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the final piece for a team that was already on the rise.

But Hayne hasn’t been able to fill that role.

It seems that even these revised expectations were far in advance of what Hayne would be able to provide.

Part of that is on coach Neil Henry — it seems that Hayne is unable to impose himself on a match from fullback, yet Henry has kept him there for several weeks.

Fullback is one of the most physically demanding positions on the field and Hayne is not in the same condition he was when he left rugby league.

That’s to be expected — he spent two years crafting his body for the specifics and conditions of another sport and many players who have left league and returned have struggled to get back to their physical peak.

Given the discourse around Hayne it might be tempting to label him as completely without upside, but that’s incorrect.

Can Hayne’s NRL career continue if he blazes out of the Titans?

He can still throw a nice pass, he’s still got very good hands and every now and then there’s a flash of what he used to be.

But that raw speed and power, that ability to break a game open in a single carry, the dynamic running game that made him what he was, we’re yet to see anything like that in the 12 months he’s been back in rugby league. Given how long it’s been out of sight it’s reasonable to question if it can ever return.

It may take another off-season for Hayne to get back to something resembling his peak physical condition.

And given the developments of the last week, it appears to be increasingly unlikely that he’ll be at the Titans to attempt to make that transition.

But as bleak as his situation may look at the Titans, the open market may not be as kind to Hayne as it was this time last year.

The goodwill of 2014 is rapidly fading from memory. It’s now been a long time since he was the player everyone expects him to be.

Apart from the Titans, every club in the league either has an established fullback, a rising prospect worth pursuing or already have an incoming signing locked in for 2018.

And even if they didn’t, even if there was roster uncertainty at a club and they wanted to take a chance, it just seems like such a low percentage move.

Why would you sign a player who is three years removed from his best form?

Why would you sign a player who has had a serious bust up with the coach?

Why would you trust a player to perform for you in a key position when all the signs indicate he can’t be the player he was?

If Hayne is to have a future in the NRL, you would think it’s as a centre.

But even then, his stock has taken such a beating that only a club with a certain combination of components — a strong and established leadership group for starters — would back their mentality to get the best out of him.

Maybe Souths take a chance on him to add to their revamped backline with the arriving Dane Gagai and the returning Greg Inglis.

Perhaps Manly bring him in to play left centre.

If Canterbury can dig their way out of their salary cap prison they could be tempted to sign Hayne and give the Bulldogs a little bit of the spark they so badly need.

But if and may and perhaps are the best Hayne has to go on right now.

Where can Jarryd Hayne go?

Even if a club throws him a bone, he would need to drastically improve in the 2017-18 off-season to secure a regular NRL spot next season.

It is not an overstatement to label this looming pre-season the most important of his rugby league career, regardless of where he ends up.

Two years after being the toast of Australian sport and dominating the national consciousness like few sportspeople ever do, Hayne could be out of the sport where he made his name.

Rugby beckons if he can’t get a roster spot somewhere.

One would think the desperate ARU would gladly leverage his star power, an aspect which will never fade, and there would be many euros or yen on offer overseas should he choose that route.

Fading out of the rugby league scene is an ignominious end for a player who has bathed in the spotlight for almost a decade, but the chances seems to be running out for Jarryd Hayne.

Sometimes changing to the right club can reinvigorate a players career when it looks its bleakest, and a good pre-season can work wonders, so we’ll stop short of saying his rugby league career is over.

But it’s been so long since we saw the talent that made Hayne great.

Whatever his other issues in the past, his talent always overrode them.

He needs that talent to save him one last time if he wants to stay in rugby league.