No one has been able to put a finger on what makes the enigma that is Jarryd Hayne tick.

He's frustrated coaches, polarised fans and even the act of courage to walk away from fame and fortune to chase his NFL dream was met with scepticism.

He made the difficult look effortless. Somehow, he still made effort look difficult.

He trained like a novice, played like a genius; teetered between the mind-blowing and the mind-numbing.

"He was always someone who wasn't going to be put in a box," his childhood friend and Parramatta captain Tim Mannah says.

"That frustrated a lot of coaches, because I think the way sport is, people like to put players in a box so they can have control over personalities in a team. He never really liked that, and that's a big part of why he's over there, and that's a big part of why I think he's going to succeed.

"He won't sit in a box and be the person or player everyone expects him to be. He's not someone who will be happy with getting 30 seconds every fortnight. He's someone who wants to own it."

And own it he has.

Two games in, Hayne already has two nations captivated by his every move. The story of pro football this pre-season, they say.

The man they can't leave out of the San Francisco 49ers 53-man roster, apparently.

"Bro, it's unbelievable," Hayne's Cabramatta teammate turned Bulldogs back-rower Tony Williams says.

"I always gave him shit, but now he's done what he's done, I have so much respect for him. I've told him I'll come over there and hold your pockets; I'll carry your bags, whatever you want. We muck around and talk crap to each other, but after what he's done, all us boys who are close to him respect him more. If anyone could see our WhatsApp conversations, it's amazing. All we talk about is Jarryd.

"We're proud of him and what he's done in such a short time. A few months ago we were talking about all celebrities and what the players do with their partying and lifestyle and who they bond with. Now he's doing it. He's hanging out with the big dogs like Colin Kaepernick. It gives you chills watching it. It feels like we're in there with him. It's a dream come true for me. Seeing what he's doing is making my dreams come true."

For Hayne, those dreams began in backyards and parks in the south-west Sydney suburb of Minto.

"Haynesy, let's go," Krisnan Inu would yell from outside the Haynes' housing commission home. Most often, there would be no response.

Five minutes – that's how long Inu would give Hayne to get himself out the door and off to school at Westfields Sports High before knocking on the door, which was regularly met with a greeting from Hayne's grandmother.

"Man, why you letting Nana open the door, you come open the door," Inu would say.

Then, after five minutes of watching TV, they'd look at each other with three options to start the day.

"So, are we going to school, are we going late or are we just going to training'?".

For these two kids cut from the same cloth, football was everything.

They played at school, for their local club Cabramatta and for the Parramatta Eels.

"Footy was life," Inu says. "If we knew we had a game that week, we made sure we went to school that day because if we didn't we wouldn't be allowed to play. If we didn't have a game, we'd only go to training.

"We knew what we wanted and made our own path. At the end of that path all we could see was rugby league. For us, it was all or nothing."

It was rugby league or bust, because Hayne, well, he was never going to scale great heights as an academic.

"He was dumb," Williams says. "He was a dumb kid. But we all were, that's what we had in common and that's why we got along."

Inu can still remember his mother yelling at them as the classes they missed racked up as they got older. "You two better be good at football ... because you suck at school," she said. But they didn't care. They had each other and that NRL dream motivating their every move.

"We were just kids having fun," Williams said. "We grew up with a lot of love between the boys. We come from a Polynesian background with a no worries attitude. It was all about fun.

"We enjoyed the game and we did it together. We knew someone was going to become a superstar, and it was Haynesy."

Once aligned, their paths have now divided.

Williams at Canterbury, Mannah at Parramatta, Inu in France, and Hayne – well, his path is leading him down a tunnel towards the blinding lights of the NFL.

The Hayne story is the stuff of fairytales: Boy from housing commission makes NRL as a teenager. Boy gets shot at in King's Cross, finds God in his homeland ofFiji.

"That was a turning point in his life," Inu says.

"It was a wake-up call for him to find his place in rugby league and fall back in love with the game. He wasn't that religious growing up. But after coming back from Fiji after the World Cup, every time we went out to eat he'd say 'Oi, we should do a prayer before'.

"All of us were looking at him like 'Shut up, you never do that'. He came back from that camp saying 'Do you want to drink some kava'? We're like 'Man, you don't drink that, shut your mouth'. He came back a different person. He grew up the Aussie way all his life with his two little sisters, but you thought this bloke was a full freshy when he got back."

From a young age, Hayne gravitated towards the spotlight.

He was always the best of his age group, unless you ask Williams, of course.

Those show-stopping plays he constantly produced as an NRL superstar, he pulled them off as a kid, too.

"I remember our first Harold Matts game," Mannah says.

"He put a chip and chase in just to put on a bit of a show. He's an entertainer. He always has been."

He's the showman often misconstrued as arrogant.

"But he fits right in over there," says Robbie Farah, who has been watching Hayne highlights on repeat.

"Lairing up and carrying on. He's always carried on like that. That's just Haynesy. It's not arrogance, it's confidence. Seeing what he is doing gives me goosebumps just watching it. It fills me with so much pride."

Parramatta fans can still hear the voice of Ray Warren from their last days of joy six years ago.

"Jarryd Hayne! Oh superstar, superhuman. Call him what you like. The speed of a bullet. Jarrrr-rrryyyddd Hayne. What. About. That," Rabs exclaimed.

Not that Farah, who roomed with Hayne during Origin III camp this year, needs reminding.

"How can I forget it, I was filthy at him, because he single-handedly beat us at the footy stadium and ended our season," Farah recalls of Hayne's golden run in 2009.

"I hated him for it at the time but he's definitely the best I've ever played with. How great he will be remembered will probably be determined over the next few years. Even if he doesn't go on to make it or become a success over there, just to see how far he's gotten is massive within itself. If he was to come back home in the next six months to rugby league, I don't think anyone would see what he's done as a failure. This will be a massive, massive story. If he gets there it will be one of the greatest achievements for anyone to come out of this country.

"I'm so proud of him. I've still got the photo of us hugging each other in tears after winning Origin last year. It's one of my favourite photos of all time."

Class of 2004: Tony Williams, Jarryd Hayne and Krisnan Inu form a hefty back row. Photo: Supplied

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Hayne's journey is the effort and commitment he has shown to practise and learn the playbook.

He was renowned as one of the worst trainers in the NRL, spending more time on Twitter than training.

"He was rubbish," Inu said.

"Rubbish in the gym. You can ask Timmy, you can ask Tony, you can ask Feleti Mateo. Nine times out of 10 when we were in the gym – he'd be on the side stretching."

But Hayne didn't need the gym. Nor did he need a coach telling him where to be or what to do. He had the ability to do it all himself, even if it was met with resistance from the powers above.

"He always had the talent, so back home he didn't have to push himself to be a freak," Mannah says.

"It came natural to him. I've never seen someone so in tune with their body. Trainers would get frustrated with him, but he knew what he had to do to be at his best come game day. It wasn't that he was lazy, he just didn't see the purpose of doing things he thought were not needed.

"People were quick to judge him when they saw a photo of his body in the off-season. This is by far the most he's looked after his body."

So now The Champ, as he once nicknamed himself, sits on the brink of greatness. He's living the American dream. And regardless of how long he remains in the home of the brave, he's finally discovered what makes him tick.