Rugby league 2022: Mal Meninga defends Daly Cherry-Evans as Manly factions threaten to cost him captaincy
With a push for Daly Cherry-Evans to be replaced as Manly captain by Jake Trbojevic, Mal Meninga goes into bat for the under-fire Queensland skipper.
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Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga has jumped to the defence of under fire Manly captain Daly Cherry-Evans, adamant “he has just become a victim of all the internal drama”.
And Australia’s Test coach was adamant people blaming Cherry-Evans for the Sea Eagles’ late-season demise are way off the mark.
“He has been trying his butt off,” Meninga said.
It comes amid a push for Jake Trbojevic to take over as Manly skipper, with claims DCE is on the nose with some sections at the club.
But Meninga went into bat for Queensland’s triumphant Origin captain, declaring from his point of few Cherry-Evans was all but a certainty to make the end-of-season World Cup tour as one of two specialist halfbacks along with Nathan Cleary.
Cherry-Evans is also an obvious contender along with James Tedesco for the Kangaroos captaincy vacated by the recently retired Boyd Cordner.
Meninga said that would be a call made by ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys and the board, but he saw his leadership for Queensland this year as arguably his best at the Origin level.
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But told Cherry-Evans’s form had really fallen off a cliff late in the season, Meninga responded: “I don’t think he has. I think he has been trying his butt off.
“He has just become a victim of all the internal drama.
“I’m not going to hold that against him.
“That is my personal opinion.
“He has done enough in my thoughts to be considered for the tour.
“His name will certainly be raised.
“And I think what is important about our tour is that we need a bit of leadership and experience because the team hasn’t played international footy for a long, long time.
“The majority of the players would never have toured before so we need to get that balance right around experience and youth, and still have that value around being the best of the best in their positions.”
Asked if saying DCE would be “considered” meant he would be on the plane, Meninga added: “Well, in my mind, yes.
“But obviously we have got two selectors and a chairman (V’landys, Laurie Daley and Darren Lockyer).
“We will go through that due process obviously, but in my mind I feel that he has done enough to be there, yeah.”
Meninga is scheduled to meet with V’landys and selectors Laurie Daley and Darren Lockyer to name a Kangaroos train-on squad later this week.
From that a Prime Minister’s 13 team to take on Papua New Guinea on September 25 will be selected.
DCE must be first casualty of Manly shake-up
- Phil Rothfield
The toughest discussion in Manly’s off-season football-club shake-up will be around halfback Daly Cherry-Evans and his future as captain as much as Des Hasler’s coaching.
There is a feeling only one man has the capability of repairing the fractured playing group on the northern peninsula – their spiritual leader and much loved local junior Jake Trbojevic.
He is one of the most admired players in Manly history and would be an inspired choice.
This is not supposed to be a criticism of Cherry-Evans, who has been a fine skipper for both Manly and the Queensland Maroons in recent years.
However these desperate times require leadership changes as part of the major restructure that new chief executive Tony Mestrov is undertaking and which have been revealed in great detail by colleagues Brent Read and Michael Carayannis.
It is a fact DCE does not have the support of the entire playing group.
A couple of players are even barely on speaking terms with him.
It’s like a throwback to a decade ago when he was in a similar situation on the northern peninsula.
Back then, Cherry-Evans was unfairly blamed for the departure of second-rower Glenn Stewart, which caused great ill-feeling at the club for months.
While others took pay cuts, DCE signed a big-money contract that meant there was no room in the cap for Stewart.
It has proven to be money well spent considering DCE’s contribution in 282 games for the club.
However changes are required right now at a club that is on its knees.
Cherry-Evans can be seen as an aloof sort of character and someone players rarely turn to in the grim situations Manly has experienced over the last couple of months.
I actually thought his press-conference performance six weeks ago alongside Hasler at the Pride jersey press conference was strong leadership.
But internally others don’t necessarily agree.
This Manly organisation is an absolute mess right now.
Cherry-Evans spoke after the loss to the Canterbury Bulldogs on Friday night.
He refused to blame the seven straight losses on a split in the ranks over the Pride jersey fiasco and his most interesting quote was: “It’s not the time for pointing fingers and blaming people.”
However questions are also being asked around DCE and his $1.2 million salary.
Is he actually worth that much, remembering this is a side that can’t win without Tom Trbojevic but can without the big money halfback.
In the 10 games DCE has missed in the last three years Manly has a 50 per cent win record.
In the games he has played it drops to 47 per cent.
The Kangaroos and Maroons star is contracted as Manly’s highest paid player alongside Tom Trbojevic until the end of the 2025 season.
It’s a questionable contract considering he turns 34 next year.
Some are even suggesting that Manly should consider offering DCE to the Dolphins, the new club based from where he originally came from at Redcliffe.
Watch this space because it’s going to dominate headlines for some time yet.
As for Hasler and his future, it’s interesting that chairman Scott Penn has arrived home from New York to clean this mess up that Dessie isn’t fully responsible for.
The coach is a legendary Manly figure, who has made mistakes, but needs to be treated with more respect.
He’s got to stop being such a control freak and allow Mestrov to make the necessary changes.
As for Penn, he based himself in New York and had no chief executive for months after the departure of Stephen Humphreys when the Pride jersey fiasco ripped the heart out of the club.
He needs to be looking into his own leadership, as much as the coach and DCE.
The management failings this year are as much to blame as Hasler’s coaching for the predicament Manly now finds itself in.
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Originally published as Rugby league 2022: Mal Meninga defends Daly Cherry-Evans as Manly factions threaten to cost him captaincy
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