ANALYSIS

The Jarryd Hayne saga took a sensational and unexpected twist on Wednesday – and it was accompanied by one of the most bizarre press conferences in Australian sports history.

The Gold Coast Titans swooped under beleaguered Parramatta’s guard to unveil the code-hopping superstar on a reported $2.4 million deal, tying him to the club until the end of 2018 and making him rugby league’s highest-paid player.

Ensuring the storyline will overshadow the remainder of the NRL season, Hayne is available to play immediately, with his Titans debut likely to come in Sunday’s crunch game against the Warriors.

But the weirdest part of Wednesday’s media circus was Hayne’s sullen disposition and frequent references to his former club, the Eels, who he shunned in such unexpected and duplicitous fashion.

Ever since dropping his NFL bombshell in 2014, we’ve been showered with rhetoric about how Hayne was a Western Sydney lad who only ever wanted to play rugby league for Parramatta.

If he returned to NRL, it would only be in the blue-and-gold strip.

But apparently, his hands were tied.

“I never thought I’d join another club. Not in my wildest dreams I ever thought I would be up on the Gold Coast,” Hayne said.

Hayne was hardly a picture of happiness. Photo: Getty

“Part of me is sad because I’m not going to go back to the club that I grew up with and loved as a kid.

“The way that the board is, the way things have gone this year, (Parramatta) couldn’t get something done. It’s sad and it hurts me just as much as I know it hurts the fans down there.”

Hayne, flanked by a buoyant Titans chief executive Graham Annesley and coach Neil Henry, even said it was “devastating” he could not re-join the Eels.

The enormous salary offered by the Gold Coast surely played a significant role, but the fact that Hayne’s signing with the Titans allows him to return to the field immediately seems to have underpinned his decision.

“it wasn’t easy and I think at the end of the day I wanted to play footy this year,” Hayne continued.

Parramatta wasn’t in a position to table a concrete offer right now, but it was on the cards.

If Hayne was as desperate to return to the Eels as he claims, why not just put the cue in the rack for 2016?

Hayne’s Rugby Sevens stint was a brief one. Photo: Getty

After all, he has already played gridiron and rugby sevens this year.

Suppose the Eels had been able to fast-track Hayne straight into first grade this weekend.

He would have had five games left, with the club in finals purgatory due to NRL sanctions for cheating the salary cup.

And it’s not as if Parramatta’s off-field blundering and toxic back-room environment are recent developments.

Hayne’s NFL experience was a dud. Photo: Getty

It wouldn’t be overly cynical to suggest the Titans’ burgeoning 2016 premiership claims – helped markedly by his arrival on the holiday strip – piqued Hayne’s interest.

Perhaps Hayne spied an opportunity to achieve one of his much talked-about ‘dreams’ in just two months and jumped at it.

And perhaps guiding his long-suffering junior club to glory wasn’t the cherished ambition he said it was; at least not one worth enough for the fickle Hayne to wait until 2017.

Wednesday’s developments cap an extraordinary turnaround for the Titans.

At rock bottom last year in the face of financial ruin, a cocaine scandal and Daly Cherry-Evans’ infamous back-flip on joining the club, they are arguably in their strongest-ever position.

Has Parramatta’s year gone from bad to worse? Photo: Getty

For Parramatta, it’s one final catastrophe to finish off one of the most nightmarish seasons suffered by any club.

But the Eels may be better off.

The team has shown more promise in the two seasons since Hayne left than they did in the previous five as an NRL also-ran when he was their marquee man.

Hayne notoriously marches to the beat of his own drum – and therein lies the danger for Gold Coast.

If his Titans stint doesn’t go according to plan, Hayne is odds-on to swagger back into Parramatta HQ declaring he really does want to win the Eels a grand final.

As the saying goes in modern rugby league, contracts are worth about as much as the paper they’re written on.

Hayne’s word is worth roughly the same amount.