The widespread delight in former Parramatta fullback Jarryd Hayne showing Americans how to play gridiron is perfect reflection of the sporting cringe that shapes Australian national life.
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Australian cricketers and surfers spend lifetimes trying to beat the English and the Hawaiians at their own games. Hayne, in turn, became the local hero who showed the Yanks how to do it at preseason training this week as he tried out for the San Francisco 49er's 53-player squad.
For days, Australian television sets were alive with vision of the 27-year-old Australian leaving Dallas and Houston players in his dust as he ducked and dazzled with amazing ball handling and 51-27-34 and 23-yard runs.
"I'm loving it," NFL great Jerry Rice said. "Every time he touches the football there's something spectacular going on."
Hayne, the son of Auckland Warriors centre Manoa Thompson, was raised with his two sisters by their single mother Jodie and he cried last October announcing he was leaving for the US after a stellar Parramatta career.
"I was probably about to become the highest-paid player in rugby league but I'm a kid from Minto," Hayne said as he broke down. "My whole dream of being a professional athlete was to buy my mum a house and I did that. Everything else is a bonus."
Many Australians have been called to gridiron but few chosen.
Victorian high jumper Colin Ridgeway (the first Australian to clear 7 feet [2.13 metres]) was the trailblazer, signing with the Dallas Cowboys in 1965 after a desultory reserves career with Carlton Football Club. Ridgeway played only three games with Dallas and was murdered in Texas in 1993.
Most who came to play NFL in Ridgeway's wake fared little better.
In the main, they came from Australian rules football.
Former Melbourne and West Coast player Darren Bennett (San Diego Chargers) and Collingwood's Saverio Rocca (Philadelphia Eagles) each played more than 100 games but the dozen other Australian hopefuls fell by the wayside.
The real successes were Mat McBriar, Brad Wing and Jesse "Tha Monstar" Williams who made the NFL after playing in Australian gridiron competitions and headed across the Pacific on college football scholarships.
Parramatta is paying Hayne some $50,000 in the hope he returns home if his gridiron career turns rusty.
Meanwhile, Nike has given its imprimatur and rushed out "Hayne 38" football jerseys. The Americans are planning to send scouts across the Pacific to scour Australian football codes for Hayne clones.
Hayne will learn if he has made San Francisco 49er's final squad on September 6.
