Matty Johns: Stop judging Jackson Hastings on who he was, judge him on who he is now

When asked to train Jackson Hastings, MATTY JOHNS was reluctant to take on the rumoured upstart. What he discovered was the truth behind the public persona.

The rugby league Gods have a knack of delivering to a player what he deserves.

Ask Jackson Hastings.

Jackson’s walked a tough road. As a youngster leaving the Dragons and signing with the Roosters, delivered him great opportunity but also serious challenges.

He wasn’t just a promising young fella finding his way, he was the son of Rooster’s legend Kevin Hastings. It lugged him with expectation and pressure. It’s a pressure he’s comfortable talking about now, a pressure and comparison he resented for numerous reasons.

So he tried doubly hard to show he was worthy.

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Jackson Hastings alienated many of his teammates when at the Sydney Roosters. Picture: Gregg Porteous

Slowly, word started creeping out suggesting Jackson was an upstart, he was getting ahead of himself, he had an attitude problem.

Around this time I had the opportunity to meet Jackson. He travelled over to my neck of the woods and I took him for a training session I would often do with young halves. Working on playmaking skills, going through footwork drills, a bit of short kicking.

I was apprehensive before he arrived, listening to the noise on Jackson I was half expecting a difficult young man. You work with some young playmakers and they take in everything you’re saying. With others you realised early on that you’re wasting your time. You start a sentence and they’ll finish it for you.

Jackson was outstanding. He wanted information, he was open to ideas, he asked questions. At times he challenged your theories, not because he was arrogant, but because he was a smart footballer, he’d grown up with the game.

Hastings ended up playing NSW Cup with the Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles. Picture: Christian Gilles

After the session we went to my place and just talked football for an hour or so. He spoke about the challenges he had and was enduring.

I was curious about the word that was coming from his teammates around his attitude problem.

I discreetly tried asking which of his teammates he was closest to. He immediately knew what I was getting at and addressed the issue, telling me when you’re surrounded by great players, some being your heroes you try to put up a mask of supreme confidence, and that can rub people up the wrong way.

It’s been well documented what happens in the next two years, he leaves the Roosters in acrimonious circumstances and then signs with Manly. He’d probably class his time at Brookvale as a complete write off.

His career looks to be hanging by a thread. What happens next is crucial to his football career and the making of him as a person.

Mid-season he joins Salford in the English Super League. Perennial strugglers who are on the brink of being relegated.

Hastings carried Salford Red Devils on his shoulders. Picture: George Wood/Getty Images

Given what’s at stake it looks like career suicide, instead it turns into nothing short of a fairy tale for club and player.

From the moment he pulls on the red Salford jersey he plays like the superstar he kept telling his former teammates he was. He transforms the team and they go on an amazing winning run, where he saves them from relegation. English Rugby League fans love hard, and on the day they remain in the Super League, Salford supporters, tears rolling down their cheeks, hoist him high as the hero he’d rapidly become.

But that’s just the entrée.

The following season Salford start the year as favourites to be relegated. Instead, what occurs is what Salford fans describe as one of the greatest seasons in their history.

September 27, 2018. @JackoHastings and @SalfordDevils all-but mathematically secure Super League survival after beating Toulouse 💪

October 12, 2019. Jackson Hastings (Steve Prescott MBE Man of Steel) & Salford will play in the Grand Final 🏆 #GrandFinalpic.twitter.com/pmA2CguWPc

— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) October 12, 2019

Hastings takes his game to new levels. He would not just collect the Man of Steel player of the year award but take Salford on an incredible run to the Super League Grand Final. The ultimate fairy tale just falls short when they’re defeated by the powerhouse St Helens. But it’s a season the club and it’s fans will never forget.

This 18 months has been the making of Jackson Hastings the footballer. Not surrounded by superstars, but instead, hard working professionals, Hastings becomes the man.

For Salford to win week after week Jackson needed to be close to his best, if he has a bad day they lose. On top of that Salford are a club who rarely won comfortably. So right through that season Hastings needed to come up with the big plays during the big moments and nearly always delivered.

13 year old Cael wanted to spend his pocket money on training with Salford. Jackson Hastings took him along with him.

Jackson promised him he’d come back another day and play FIFA with him. He’s just made this young boys day.

Credit to Jackson. He’s grown a lot in the UK. pic.twitter.com/NJ0sGeZmZj

— Footy Smiles 😁 (@FootySmiles) December 13, 2018

After a couple more seasons in England Jackson Hastings has returned as a strong, confident leader.

Some of the comments leading up to last Monday’s victory against the Eels were outstanding.

He talked about how he was going to alleviate pressure off Luke Brooks and spoke about a, “good performance” not being good enough, they were, “there to win.”

After the win he heaped praise on Luke Brooks and told the boys at NRL 360 desk to, “get off his back.”

Paul Kent smiled, nodded, he loved the display of leadership.

Sometimes amazing things happen in the less pressure surroundings of English Football. In the early 80’s Gavin Miller was a good centre who appeared to have lost all confidence playing lower grades with Eastern Suburbs. At the crossroads he signed a contract to play with English club Hull Kingston Rovers.

When Gavin returned to play with Cronulla several years later he’d transformed into a ball playing genius. In my opinion, close to the best of the modern era.

It remains to be seen if Jackson Hastings can have that kind of impact but it’s a pretty good start.

KENT: HASTINGS SHOWS HE’S THE TRUE LEADER AT WESTS TIGERS

The reality is when you have five leaders you really have none.

Before the season, Wests Tigers coach Michael Maguire announced the club’s new captains, going with the unusual decision to name five captains for the club, which revealed the uncomfortable truth at the Tigers. By naming five, they admitted they had none.

Where once it was considered the most prestigious role at a football club, the Tigers were now going to do it by committee.

A majority of three was needed for a decision. Or paper, scissors, rock.

The captains, presented here in alphabetical order because there seemed no other metric, were Luke Brooks, Adam Doueihi, Ken Maumalo, Tyrone Peachey and James Tamou.

Jackson Hastings failed to make the list.

Jackson Hastings steered the Tigers to an upset win against the Eels on Easter Monday. Picture: NRL Photos/Gregg Porteous

Yet six rounds in Hastings showed, in Monday afternoon’s win over Parramatta, that he is the true leader at the club. He should have the (c) next to his name.

The first evidence was there before the game when Hastings was asked how the Tigers would compete against Parramatta. Not win, just compete. It was not a silly question.

Parramatta had won four of their first five and had many believing this might finally be the year the Eels take that next step into true premiership contention.

❤️🥲. https://t.co/hzMEa9r0Xx

— Jackson Hastings (@JackoHastings) April 18, 2022

The Tigers had struggled to put together anything even resembling a full game of football and had already lost to Newcastle, Warriors and Gold Coast, who cause no trembling this side of the harbour.

All signs were pointing to the Eels winning convincingly.

They were celebrating the club’s 75th anniversary on the day and old ghosts like Ray Price and Brett Kenny and Mick Cronin and Peter Sterling were in the grandstand.

But the Tigers were not there to compete, Hastings told his interrogator, they were there to win. It seemed a false confidence, and prompted a few soft chuckles in several quarters.

This bravado was part of the knock on Hastings when he first emerged in the NRL and then struggled to fit in at the Roosters, where he rubbed teammates the wrong way, and then after at Manly where he had a spectacular fallout with his teammates.

The club effectively banished him to NSW Cup to get him out of the place and at the end of the season, he was released to play in England.

Jackson Hastings has never been short of confidence. Picture: Richard Dobson

Confidence was never believed to be his problem, when it really was.

He was raised as the son of Eastern Suburbs legend Kevin Hastings, more a burden than a privilege, it turned out. It failed to open as many doors as it closed, for reasons many of us will never properly understand.

The Roosters, for instance, quickly grew tired of Kevin’s interference in his son’s career. Dad, leaning on old scrapbooks, telling him one thing while the Roosters tried to coach another.

If it was a difficult relationship, it is one Jackson has now finally found peace with.

Maybe he needed the distance of England to find it.

Hastings left Australia and went to Salford in the English Super League to find the Red Devils on the edge of relegation.

As last stop shops go, it was as close as it could get. Something happened there, though. Salford needed him, and Hastings recognised that and responded.

Jackson Hastings took his game to a new level playing for Salford in Super League. Picture: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

From the brink of relegation, Hastings saved the club that first season, leading them on a run that kept them in the Super League and then, next season, led them all the way to the grand final. He was also named the Super League Man of Steel, as the game’s best player.

Some men need to be relied upon to discover what’s inside them, and with the club under pressure, Hastings emerged as a teammate, discovering himself in the process.

True leadership can be a solitary business, and he was comfortable with that.

It carries responsibility and consequence, which also failed to frighten him.

When Hastings ran out at halfback for the Tigers on Monday, the shift was immediate.

Teammate Daine Laurie said the big change against Parra was his talk at halfback.

Cooper Cronk pointed out afterwards that Hastings was able to condense the middle third of the field which bought five-eighth Luke Brooks, shifted from half, an extra step in attack to do what he could do.

Jackson Hastings (left) was swamped by teammates after kicking the match-winning field goal against Parramatta. Picture: NRL Images

In just one game Hastings emerged as the team’s leader, rock beating scissors.

Afterwards he iced it by telling a few old codgers with ink in their pens to lay off the criticism of Brooks, who was superb.

Well, guilty.

But the moment belonged to Hastings, who left Australia as a slightly troubled young man and found accountability and responsibility, enough that Monday’s win will be chiselled in as the true launch of his redemption story.

And if entrusted to become the club captain, goes the other narrative, it could be the starting point for the Tigers’ redemption, too.

Originally published as Matty Johns: Stop judging Jackson Hastings on who he was, judge him on who he is now