Jackson Hastings’ attitude couldn’t have been better while playing NSW Cup over the weekend. The Knights halfback not only set up five tries in his side’s 50-24 win over the Bears, but he was very vocal and involved.
He had the support of several of his teammates too including Tyson Gamble and Adam Elliott, who stood on the sideline for a chunk of the Cup game to watch on.
Hastings finished the game with two linebreak assists, 73 metres and 13 tackles — no misses — to go with his five try assists.
This was playing for the last placed team, against the second placed team.
Obviously Jacko much more experienced half, and this was a bit of a 'prove yourself' game from him, but this is the kind of effort from an 'NRL quality' 7 in a NSW Cup game that earns you a chance somewhere*
Trindall used to play okay, or reasonably well, then have people in here saying we should be promising him our 7 or arguing when he didn't play well it was because why should he in Cup.
And now he is only going okay in NRL.
Not saying there is nothing there but he looks pretty similar to me in NRL as he did in Cup, where he was 7 and didn't have Hynes supposedly limiting him.
Has he actually even improved in the last 3 years as a fulltime part of an NRL club? Not as much as I expected him to that's for sure.
I don't see anyone pressuring him at this stage until Dykes can really settle in, and Trindall should continue to develop in his role with the NRL team, but I've been disappointed by him and don't see his unproven (but perceived) elite game management skills being both so good they can help us improve but so quiet he just lets Hynes do 100% of it, he is still one of our two halves afterall.
*obviously Hastings has had many chances and people seem to point back at personality a lot. Like Maloney he can't stick a club.