They're either sick of the story, exhausted by the hype and mania and media coverage. Or they're already minimising his achievement because he hasn't quite made it until he plays in the actual NFL. A rare bit of NFL action, involving Jarryd Hayne Credit:Getty Images Granted, the media can squeeze the lemon a little too hard with this type of story, but who freakin' cares? I mean, seriously ... It's easier to dismiss something than understand it. Last Thursday, Fairfax Media senior writer Catherine Armitage showed how much she doesn't understand it. "Australia, sometimes you embarrass me," she wrote in a column that was so dismissive it made a ripple in the US media. "A few weeks ago I'd never heard of Jarryd Hayne. Now this guy they call the 'Hayne Plane' is turning up on all my screens and I resent it. Seriously, I'm supposed to care that an Australian footballer has gone to play football in the US? I'm supposed to be excited because he's had a couple of exhibition games for the San Francisco 49ers and he might — MIGHT — get picked for the team?"

Being a humble sportswriter, there's a reason I don't wade into the other sections of the newspaper. Take federal politics. If I wrote about federal politics, I'd have to call bullshit daily on elected public figures using important issues such as the environment, refugees and marriage equality for political gain, instead of the actual not-so-insignificant issues themselves. I'm sure there's more to federal politics than this. I just don't see it. That's why I keep snuggling deep into the warm, comfortable bosom of sport. Armitage also claimed all this Hayne excitement had something to do with Australians feeling like they're just little Hayne Planes in a world of really big Planes. "The Hayne hysteria has put on embarrassing display our historical inferiority complex," she wrote. "How much progress have we really made when the measure of our star athlete's success is whether they can get a run with a US team."

I'm yet to find anyone else who considers it that way. Hayne's preferred code just happens to be the NFL and it is played in the US. Alongside the English Premier League, it's the biggest show on earth. The significance of what Hayne is achieving extends beyond sport. It's never about "just making the team". Just like it was never about the bike for Lance Armstrong as he came back from testicular cancer before winning a score of Tour de Frances. (Unfortunately, for Lance, it was mainly about the EPO, but that's another story, for another time). No, it's about the magic, baby. It's about a young kid from Sydney's outer-west, who was raised by a single mum in housing commission, who walked away from the security of a $1 million-per-season contact in the NRL, to chase down a dream of playing another sport, without fear of failure …

And then making it. If you can't find anything magical in that, what do you find magical? Against the odds: Jarryd Hayne was up against it from the start. Credit:Getty Images Sport is sprinkled with this magic. I don't cover sport to write about the torn hammies and referee blunders and what Robbie Farah might do. I want to write about the magic. The magic is there in Dan Smith, a swimmer who two years ago descended into drugs and alcohol, booked into rehab, emerged from the hellhole and dove into the pool again … and last month represented Australia at the world champs in Russia.

The magic is there in the seven-year-old boy in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, bouncing a ball on his foot and head like he's Neymar, trying to find a way out while his drug-dealing father is around the corner, doing business. The magic is there in Greg Inglis, a rugby league player who sets an example every time he steps on the field for the young Indigenous kids living in a mission just outside his hometown of Bowraville. The magic is there in the 20-year-old on the other end of Johnny Lewis' boxing pads, trying to get ready for his first and maybe only fight, because if he's not doing that he will have a needle in his arm. "The only one who beats us is ourselves, son," Johnny will tell him, just as he has scores of world champions from Harding to Fenech to Tszyu to the hundreds more you have never heard of. The magic is in every athlete, from the grandest stage to the shabbiest suburban field, who would have little purpose in their life if not for sport.

A few years ago, Hayne was overlooked for selection for NSW in a State of Origin team because coach Ricky Stuart was concerned about his lack of commitment for his club, Parramatta. It was a regular theme of his NRL career: that Hayne would only shine when he felt he wanted to. There's an argument that he was given too much say, too early in his career. Whatever it was, it confused a litany of Eels coaches who didn't know how to solve the Rubik's Cube that was their fullback. Usually, it cost them their jobs. Hayne went to the US a year ago hunting down a dream, needing to do it all on his own for the first time in his life. And then he made it. It really doesn't matter if he makes anything from here on in, although there are enough indications that he will.

Listen to this quote: "You can tell that he puts life in the game. He has a spark about him. When he comes in, you feel something is going to happen." That could've been one of dozens of rugby league experts over the past decade. It was John Madden, Hall of Fame NFL coach. Kind of a big deal? He's had a video game named after him since 1988. If you're not into footy or NFL or any kind of sportsball, this mightn't excite you. If so, turn the page, don't click on the story, change the channel. For the rest of us, we'll just plonk down here in seat 1A of the Hayne Plane. The flight should be magic.