Gold Coast have fired back at Jarryd Hayne’s NRL critics, warning the superstar fullback is set to make them eat their words.

The “Hayne Plane” is under scrutiny yet again after reports he had been dropped from the club’s leadership group after a blow up with teammates.

It follows on from revelations he had been fined by coach Neil Henry for missing a pre-season training session.

Gold Coast captain Ryan James, at the centre of the story after Hayne claimed he was given permission by his skipper to miss the optional workout, described the stories as disappointing and water under the bridge.

He said it was frustrating that incidents, which occurred four months ago, had been dredged up and he couldn’t fault Hayne’s attitude since.

“Since the birth of his child, he’s really knuckled down,” James said.

“The same thing happened to me, when I had (son) Carter. I realised you can’t depend on footy and you start to think outside of the footy realm.

“It was great for me and I thought I had my first year of footy last year.”

James said the story had been blown out of proportion and Hayne’s critics had been too quick to criticise him after his side’s first-up loss to the Sydney Roosters.

Hayne missed much of the final month of the pre-season after injuring his knee at the Auckland Nines.

The code-hopper came under fire after tweeting “loose lips sink ships”, an apparent dig at one of his clubmates after the story emerged.

James said Hayne’s social media comments had been dealt with and predicted he was the kind of player who loved to prove the haters wrong.

“I thought he played well last week; they never really show the great things he does,” James said.

“Just coming off the line and the talk he has is second to none.

“I think he’s only had that one week of training and he had a couple of rests on the weekend but you need to do that – it’s a lot of running at fullback.”