"Salford have given me the chance to live out my dreams, because it was almost over at 22, which is a scary thought."
Wednesday 20 February 2019 18:49, UK
Salford Red Devils stand-off Jackson Hastings chats exclusively to Sky Sports Rugby League about almost losing it all, life in Super League and the future...
Salford have been one of the early surprises to come out of the 2019 Super League season, sitting near the top of the table. Central to that has been the performances of Australian Hastings.
Since joining the club during the Qualifiers last year, the 23-year-old has been utterly sensational in Super League - indeed many would claim he is carrying the club to an extent.
At the end of last season, Hastings' performances had been such that he could have moved anywhere. But a new one-year deal was signed with Salford - an act of gratitude after the man himself candidly admits that without the club, his career would likely be over.
"It was easy [to re-sign] on the fact that I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you - I wouldn't even be playing professional rugby league - if it wasn't for Salford," Hastings says.
"I was staring down the barrel of working 9am-5pm, and just playing on the weekends. So I'm extremely grateful to the club and the fans and the community for embracing me the way they have.
"But also for having given me the chance to live out my dreams, because it was almost over at 22, which is a scary thought."
The cause of such a circumstance has its genesis in the NRL and Hastings' brief time with the Manly Sea Eagles.
A curfew was broken, high-profile arguments with Manly captain Daly Cherry-Evans and head coach Trent Barrett followed, before Hastings was banished to the reserves and eventually released from his contract.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact the majority of the fallout played out publicly, with the Australian media and press whipping up a frenzy.
"I thought I was done. It was drastic," Hastings says, thinking back.
"For a bloke who loves the game and has given pretty much everything I've ever had to the game, it's a scary thought that one bad decision can end it.
"But that's the way it is really, and that's the way the game has gone - they want good people in this game and if you make poor decisions, you'll pay the consequences.
"I've definitely had a lot of sleepless nights and I'm just so grateful to be over in England, playing rugby league again at a high level and being surrounded amongst great people.
"It was unbelievably difficult. I got hammered from pillar to post, I was absolutely drilled. I just had to ride the wave and eventually stick my chest out, keep my chin up and just get on with life.
"This opportunity opened up here and I was able to move on that way. Since moving over here, I want people to know the real me."
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Having finished the 2018 Super League season with his stock immeasurably increased - this side of the equator anyway - Hastings openly admits that reigning Grand Final champions Wigan Warriors offered him a deal. An offer he turned down to remain at the AJ Bell...
"Wigan were there sniffing around and offered me a contract, and it was very hard to decline that - what a great club they are and what great players they have.
"But I just thought that at 22-years-of-age, to have been given the chance to do something that was almost taken away from me, it was the right thing to stay at Salford, and I'm really happy with the decision.
"There was no NRL options and for me, it was always going to be an 18-month thing to resurrect what I'd done back there. I obviously made some poor decisions and poor choices that have landed me in a position I didn't want to be, which was being spoken about in a negative way.
"Coming over here gave not only the fans but myself a new lease of life that I was able to rectify and right some wrongs and start all over again really.
"To play the game I love in a different country and let people here see me for me, and not the person that's in the paper. It's a breath of fresh air."
Having been born in Wollongong, New South Wales, to a father who played rugby league professionally and a mother who worked as an estate agent but was also a professional athlete, representing Australia in cross country and skiing, sport is clearly something in Hastings' blood.
His whole family remain Down Under with two younger sisters based in Wollongong and two older brothers based in Sydney.
Indeed, Hastings travelled back home in the off-season to take in the Australian sun and visit his two Cavapoo's - cavalier cross poodles - Bruce and Benji: "I'm soft deep down and they're little fury things. They bring out the heart in me!" he says laughing.
Despite a youth in which he played a wealth of sport including track and field, touch rugby, cricket, rugby union as well as competing in swimming, surfing and taking a life-saving course, it was rugby league which grabbed Hastings...
"It was always rugby league. I've lived and breathed it.
"My dad was a great player, played professionally back home as well so it was sort of in my blood and was always something I wanted to do.
"I always wanted to do this and be in the position I am, sitting here talking about it.
"It's been unreal and has been something I've always dreamed of."
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Within Hastings' own family he has had a British influence too - his late grandmother hailed from Plymouth, something which would make him eligible for England internationally in the future.
"Nan's from Plymouth, she sadly passed away a year-and-a-half ago, but she was a proud Englishwoman and I told her that one day I'd be over here playing - obviously under different circumstances to what I'd imagined - but I'm here now and I know that she'd be extremely proud of what I've been able to achieve.
"In terms of playing for England, I'm open to the option if it ever became a reality. But in saying that, I'd have to weigh that up when it got to it, and if it got to it - I'd have to play good footy to even be considered too.
"But I can play if chosen."
With two wins from three Super League games so far this season, and an eye-catching pre-season too, what are Hastings' aims for the season both from a Salford point of view and individually?
"The club's aim this year is not to be anywhere near the bottom. To be a club where every time you see Salford on the calendar you go: 'we're in for a tough game here'. That's the number one team goal.
"And also to prove people wrong - no-one gives us a chance in hell of beating anyone so that's a big thing.
"For myself personally, it's just about becoming the best player and person I can possibly be.
"I'm the fittest I've been for a long time now. If individual honours come off the back of that, then great, but I just want to be the best player on a weekend."
