Jackson Hastings admits he hasn’t spoken to former coach Trent Barrett but says he has no issues with anybody at Manly, including Daly Cherry-Evans, since he departed from the Sea Eagles.
The playmaker will return to Brookvale Oval for the first time on Saturday since his much publicised exit from the club midway through the 2018 season.
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Hastings fell out with his Manly teammates, including Cherry-Evans, following an altercation with the skipper in Gladstone.
Then head coach, Barrett, put a line through Hastings’ name and vowed never to pick him in the NRL side again because he had problems mixing with the other players.
Hastings has since returned to the NRL with the Wests Tigers after winning the Man of Steel and a Super League title in England.
He told The Sydney Morning Herald he hasn’t spoken to Barrett, now coach of the Bulldogs, since he’s returned.
“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Trent since I got flicked.
“I don’t hold grudges. I get over things pretty quickly. I understand I’ve let myself down on a few occasions and put myself in situations where I deserved a lot of what I got. There were also a lot of things I didn’t deserve and copped.
“We don’t really have any sort of relationship. I don’t speak to him, but I don’t wish anything bad upon him.”
However, his relationship with Cherry-Evans has improved, with the halfback making peace with the Manly star before he left for England. They also caught up after a pre-season trial earlier in the year.
“I’m perfectly fine with Daly. We had a 15-minute chat after the Manly trial, he asked how my family was going and I asked the same questions,” Hastings said.
“Daly is a fantastic player and leader. He helped me a lot with my game. It would have been great to get a bit of time alongside him and play with him – I feel like our games would have complemented each other well.
“I’ve got no grudges with Manly. I’ve got no grudges with Daly. It’s not even a lingering issue. We’re both big enough and ugly enough to move on from what happened.”
Cherry-Evans said on Tuesday he had enjoyed watching Hastings’ career flourish after heading to England.
The Manly skipper also offered a glimpse of how things went down between the two.
“You could say he couldn’t laugh at himself; maybe it was the wrong jokes we were saying … it can’t be all his fault,” Cherry-Evans said.
“Watching him play at the moment, we were at different parts of our lives back then. The chemistry at the time didn’t work, but if you chucked us in the same team now we’d do a pretty handy job together.”
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