NRL 2021: Manly Sea Eagles beat New Zealand Warriors 13-12 | Match Report
Daly Cherry Evans knew he had underperformed. The under-fire skipper has opened up on the moment that mattered most — and it wasn’t the last-minute field goal.
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Daly Cherry-Evans stood in the bowels of Central Coast Stadium, having just belted out Manly’s team song for the first time this year, telling you how everything has turned on a kick.
But not his field goal which sunk the Warriors.
No, the kick Cherry-Evan’s insists has revived his season - and that of his beleaguered Sea Eagles - is the long range punt which set up a stunning first half try for winger Jason Saab.
A moment, DCE says, where he finally “pulled the trigger”.
Hammered for his poor form over the opening month of competition, Manly’s $1.2 million playmaker came good against the Warriors on Friday night – kicking for two tries before booting the match-winning field goal, on fulltime, to give his Sea Eagles their first win of the season.
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Yet while all talk afterwards was on the one-pointer that sealed the win, Cherry-Evans insists the moment which mattered most came with 28 minutes gone and the scores still locked at nil-all.
When from inside his own 30m zone, DCE took the Steeden, looked to his right, then punted the ball downfield – with Saab, inside the time it takes to blink twice, touching down at the other end.
Quizzed afterwards on the ballsy piece of brilliance, Cherry-Evans said: “Honestly, I just had to back myself tonight.
“Obviously you would’ve watched my first month of footy, I wasn’t backing myself. I was playing … clouded.
“So I knew coming here that whatever came to me, I was going with it.
“And as soon as I looked up and saw where they were positioned, I looked at (Saab) and said ‘mate, we’re kicking this – let’s go’.”
Which he did.
“And off the back of that,” DCE continued, “I can only hope it’s given my team-mates confidence to back themselves too.
“(Prior to the Warriors win) we were in a real hole.
“But all we needed to do was show how good we are.
“Because we believe we are, but tonight was about showing it.
“And I felt like that kick was just an example of us backing ourselves.”
Asked to expand on being clouded over the opening four rounds, Cherry-Evans continued: “I was getting too caught up in structure and game plans.
“I reckon it’s fair to say my best footy comes off playing what’s in front of me, playing off the cuff.
“So tonight I went ‘you know what, I know we’ve got structure, I know we’ve got a game plan and I will stick to that, but when the time comes I’m pulling the trigger’.
“And I think the kick was the perfect example of that.”
Elsewhere, DCE also revealed that given his “ordinary” start to the season, he had privately vowed to use the Warriors match to revive a team that now faces the Gold Coast in Mudgee next Saturday with a returning Tom Trbojevic.
“It’s been a pretty ordinary month of footy personally,” Cherry-Evans said.
“And there aren’t too many of my team-mates who could put their hand up and say it’s been a great month of football for them.
“So we were all in this together.
“But I knew tonight I had to rock up and give my team-mates a performance.
“Not for anyone else, but myself and my team-mates.
“That was my whole purpose of playing well tonight – for them.
“And as a halfback, you’re really hopeful you get in positions in games of footy to do what we did tonight.
“So I’m really grateful for the effort that everyone put in. I’m just the lucky one that gets to kick the field goal at the end.”
While the Sea Eagles gave teenager Josh Schuster the first field goal attempt – which was charged down – Cherry-Evans said there was no way he was missing out on the second attempt.
Quizzed on deferring to Schuster first up, he said: “We thought with the way the game was unfolding it could be a nice little decoy.
“And it worked pretty well.
“(Laughs) But I was only offering it up that once.”
So he wanted it again?
“Yeah, they kept looking saying ‘are we doing it again?’,” Cherry-Evans laughed. “I said ‘no, it’s my turn now’.”
‘IT JUST HAD TO BE DCE: UNDER FIRE SKIPPER SILENCES CRITICS
A RARE ARM-WRESTLE
Both sides struggled to make the most of opportunities in the first stanza and were haunted by sloppy handling at crucial moments.
Manly completed at 64% in the first 40 and, despite enjoying the bulk of field position, bombed two tries at close range.
The Warriors also struggled to hold the ball, completing at 65% in the first half and lacking conviction in their 5th tackle options.
“With the ball we were just horrible. We just didn’t get anywhere near where we needed to get to,” Brown said after the game.
Despite his side’s win, Hasler also admitted the game was an “ugly” one, with both sides guilty of clunky offensive play.
“It was pretty ugly but sometimes the ugliest games are the best games to be involved in,” he said.
The Sea Eagles’ pattern of kicking early in their sets finally paid off in the 27th minute, when a Cherry-Evans pearler from a scrum sent Jason Saab over for his first try in Manly colours. It was just the club’s seventh four-pointer of the season.
The Warriors struck back three minutes later through winger Ken Maumalo, who sailed over on the left side in his 100th first grade game. Kodi Nikorima added the extra points to draw level at the break.
In the second 40, the game picked up exactly where it left off.
Deputising for the injured Chanel Harris-Tevita, halfback Sean O’Sullivan sold a dummy to the Manly defence close to the line and gifted the Warriors the lead early in the second half.
It took a Kodi Nikorima drop ball for Manly to draw level again in the 60th minute. Josh Schuster regained the footy after Nikorima’s coach-killer and slid over to score his first NRL try.
HUGE SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT
After conceding a combined total of 156 points in its first four matches, Manly tightened its defence on Friday night to keep itself in the contest.
Cherry-Evans’ kicking game was dynamic throughout, while big men Taniela Paseka and Martin Taupau stood up to outmuscle the Warriors’ pack.
But it was Daly Cherry-Evans who inspired the Northern Beaches boys to victory, recapturing the stellar form which typified his early career.
INJURY CRISIS ESCALATES
The NRL’s war of attrition continued on Friday. Manly lost forward Jack Gosiewski to an ankle injury early in the first half. A hamstring injury forced stand-in fullback Dylan Walker off early in the second, with Reuben Garrick shifting into the custodian role in his place.
Gosiewski and Walker became the 9th and 10th Manly players to join the side’s ever-growing casualty ward.
After the game, Hasler confirmed Gosiewski would likely miss the remainder of the season, while Walker will require four to eight weeks on the sideline.
The Warriors lost Jazz Tevaga shortly before half time to an ankle complaint but he returned in the second 40. Teammate Marcelo Montoya left the field for the game’s only HIA and did not return
Des Hasler will hope Tom Trbojevic can inject some spark into the sluggish Manly attack when he returns from injury next week.
“That’s the plan, (but) he’s got to get through this week,” Hasler said.
The Sea Eagles will hope to make it two wins on the trot when they play the Titans in Mudgee next week.
MANLY WIN COMES AT HUGE COST
—Nick Walshaw
When Dylan Walker went and grabbed for those exposed buttocks with 56 minutes gone, everyone thought the makeshift Manly fullback was simply looking to cover himself.
Yet the truth?
It was far uglier than even a full moon.
Officially, the Sea Eagles won this night at Gosford.
With Daly Cherry-Evans booting a field goal, on fulltime, to sink the Warriors.
But the celebrations, undoubtedly, have come at a cost.
While the Sea Eagles are expecting superstar No.1 Tom Trbojevic back for next weekend’s clash against Gold Coast in Mudgee, Walker will be sidelined for up to eight weeks after limping from the field midway through the second half with a serious hamstring injury.
Moments earlier, the 26-year-old had fielded a kick on his own tryline, been tackled and then, err, pantsed.
Which is when Walker grabbed for that cheek.
A moment which, even with Tommy Turbo returning, keeps the Sea Eagles 2021 season officially on Code Red.
Especially when you consider backrower Jack Gosiewski was also carted from the field in the first half with a foot problem coach Des Hasler described afterwards as “season ending”.
Together, the injured pair joining a Sea Eagles MASH unit which also includes players like Trbojevich, Moses Suli, Jorge Taufua, Curtis Sironen and Haumole Olakau’atu.
All of which means, even on a night when DCE kicked his side to victory with a fulltime field goal, you could argue the club’s biggest positive sat in the dugout.
With Sea Eagles poster boy Trbojevic getting through all 80 minutes without having the Central Coast Stadium grandstand collapse on him – hey, it’s been that sort of start to the year for Manly, right? -- meaning he should be back for next Saturday’s match against the Gold Coast in Mudgee.
Which for Sea Eagles fans, is worth the trip west alone.
Special mention too for DCE who, with his form this year under question, kicked for two tries, including a 70m belter that saw Sea Eagles winger Jason Saab – if not rugby league’s quickest man, then certainly a finalist – go from inside his own 30m to eventually ground a bouncing Steeden on the tryline.
That one came with 28 minutes gone, and both sides still sat on duck eggs.
Then the second?
That had a touch more luck.
With Cherry-Evans, midway through the second half, kicking a grubber at the tryline which bounced right into the arms of Warriors No.6 Kodi Nikorima – and then straight through them.
As far as errors go, this one was crucial.
With 19-year-old Sea Eagle Josh Schuster on the spot to score his first NRL try.
Certainly not his last either.
Indeed, for a teenage five-eighth, Schuster makes a bloody good backrower.
Also, can someone, somewhere, please come good on those endless promises to sort an NRL footrace?
Especially after what Saab did in this one.
With the Manly No.2 earning himself the play of the night with a scorching 70m run that, if not enough to make him the fastest man in rugby league, certainly puts him into any hypothetical final.
Having already been clocked at 37.5km this year, Saab was inside his own 30 zone when, with 28 minutes gone and the scoreboard attendant still untroubled, DCE kicked downfield.
Then from there?
Well, Warriors winger Ken Maumalo turned, chased … but was never in it.
Instead, it was Saab who pelted up that right touchline to – in what seemed a blink – go and ground a footy that had, by this time, bounced up perfectly right at the tryline.
So is Saab, at 199cm, quicker than Melbourne’s Josh Addo-Carr?
Maybe not.
But you have to reckon it’s worth putting the pair together with six others to find out.
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