The Seattle Seahawks coach, Pete Carroll, has described Jarryd Hayne as “an incredible athlete” after the player announced his attempt to switch from the NRL to NFL.
Carroll, who won the Super Bowl with the Seahawks earlier this year, was asked about Hayne at a media conference and his responses suggested Hayne’s plans to try out are already advanced.
The title-winning coach appeared to be joking when he said: “Our scout down under has been on this for some time now.”
But he left no doubt the Seahawks were intrigued to see what Hayne could do. “He’s an incredible athlete and a great competitor, so we’ll see where it goes,” said Carroll. “I’m afraid to mention anything because I’m not sure of the rights things and contract issues down there. We’ll leave that up to [Seahawks general manager] John [Schneider] to figure out.”
Carroll said he did not meet Hayne when the 26-year-old visited the Seahawks’ facilities last month after meeting University of Washington coach Chris Peterson.
Pressed about Hayne, Carroll said: “I don’t think I’m able to talk about that. We couldn’t talk about a player on another [NFL] team, so I don’t want to mess it up. But it’s a pretty exciting thought.
“I’ve always thought it would be cool to recruit down in Australia and all that because there are some great players and [rugby league] is a great game. It’s a very physical and demanding game, so those guys have all the same stuff we’re looking for in our guys.”
Carroll did sound a note of caution though, saying the transition would be a tough process.
“I think it would be really hard,” he said. “I think it would be a tremendous challenge and only certain few could do it. There will need to be a lot of patience from the club that goes for it, if you do it in the end.
“It isn’t the kind of thing, I don’t think – and we’re writing a great script here – where a guy could come in in the middle of the season and all of a sudden present a starring role for that team. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think it’s going to take more time than that. But we’ve seen guys come over from other sports, we’ve seen basketball players doing it, it can happen certainly.”
