Kent tees off on Jarryd Hayne over Henry allegations

Paul Kent has strongly refuted allegations from Jarryd Hayne that his Gold Coast coach Neil Henry leaked information to the News Corp journalist about the star fullback.

Hayne fronted media for the first time since the sacking of Henry and alleged it was an article written by Kent that caused irreparable damage to the coach and player’s relationship.

Hayne also intimated that Henry used his relationship with Kent to leak details saying the coach never wanted to sign the player to the club in the first place.

"There was an article at the start of the year I felt, if someone had an issue, they could speak to me about it rather than going through a journalist," Hayne said.

"For it to happen again really took me over the edge ... that was something that was very disappointing.

ALLEGATIONS: Hayne fires shot at sacked coach Henry

"It's disappointing from my point of view, with my coach, my head coach, having a journalist that he has a relationship with.

In response Kent teed off on Hayne’s version of what happened saying Henry had in fact tried to stop Kent from writing the stories.

Speaking on NRL 360 Kent also said he did not have a friendship with Henry and had received his information on Hayne from other sources.

“I was tipped off by a coulee of people about his (Hayne's) training efforts,” Kent said on NRL 360.

“Neil (Henry) rang me and pleaded with me not to write the story, he tried to water it down.

“I wrote the article, he rang me after and asked if I could tell him who told him. I obviously couldn’t do that, I told him I was getting it from several places.

“I have not spoken to Neil since that conversation until today.

“He was trying to get me not to write the column because he knew the problems it wold cause with the problem child.”

Kent said he was happy to open up his phone records to show that he had not spoken to Neil and was adamant his relationship with Henry was based purely on respect.

“I wouldn’t say I like Neil Henry, I respect Neil Henry,” Kent said.

“I don’t know him well enough to like him.”

Kent did then go on to say that perhaps the wrong person had been sacked, that it should have been Hayne and not Henry that was moved on.

“Neil (Henry) had the Titans going before Hayne turned up, they are not going anywhere now except down,” he said.

“It remains to be seen where they will go now with a new coach, it is all on Jarryd now.”