MELBOURNE — Jarryd Hayne thanked God in his first tweet after learning that he had made the final roster for the San Francisco 49ers, bringing him within tantalizing reach of his NFL dream.
As a 27-year-old rugby league player with no prior experience of American football, the Australian's mission to defy the soul-crushing odds would truly seem touched by the divine.
"Crazy," was his astonished manager's response last year when Hayne spoke of walking away from a wildly successful career in Australia's National Rugby League competition.
His manager's skepticism was shared by many in the sports-mad nation where Hayne tearfully announced in October he would leave home-town Sydney and his long-time club, the Parramatta Eels, to pursue an improbable American dream.