Three days after his star turn for NSW in the Blues' stirring State of Origin win, Jarryd Hayne was barely noticeable in Gold Coast's 20-8 NRL loss to North Queensland in Townsville.
Stunning attacking plays and his memorable post-try celebration with Blatchy's Blues in NSW's series-opening win on Wednesday would have had Titans fans jumping for joy but the multi-code superstar again failed to have any real impact at club level.
Hayne had 41 metres from five runs, no line breaks and missed two tackles on Saturday night, a far cry from his Origin exploits were he terrorised Cowboys centre Justin O'Neill and made a series of strong runs all over the park.
Titans coach Neil Henry's decision to persist with the ex-NFL player at centre instead of his preferred position at fullback is a puzzling one but the former Cowboys coach hinted strongly that Hayne will return to the custodian role sooner rather than later.
"He didn't get his hands on the ball too much tonight, we didn't have too much possession to get it to that side," Henry said.
"Then he had the head knock so he was out for another 15 minutes.
"I think he needs to be back there (at fullback) but as I've said before straight after Origin with his legs it suited us to keep him on the left edge for this game.
"I think he'll be back there pretty quickly."
The wayward Hayne and his side looked to have their season on track when they knocked off Newcastle and Melbourne, scoring a combined 64 points in the round nine and 10 victories.
Since then, their spluttering attack has managed a meagre 18 points in losses to Manly and North Queensland, with Henry admitting it is cause for concern.
"I thought we handled the Cowboys well for large parts of the game but on the flip side we didn't really get our attack going at any stage," he said.
"Field possession wise we just weren't getting the metres they were."
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