Daly Cherry-Evans completing turnaround but rep selectors still wary of Manly star
DALY Cherry-Evans runs out for Manly on Saturday with a condition so permanent he is slowly winning everybody over. The condition of authenticity.
Sea Eagles
Don't miss out on the headlines from Sea Eagles. Followed categories will be added to My News.
D ALY Cherry-Evans runs out for Manly on Saturday with a condition so permanent, he is slowly winning everybody over.
The condition of authenticity.
Cherry-Evans, in his finest season yet, has almost completed his reinvention. His press conference on Wednesday was a small masterpiece in self-awareness. He meant every syllable he said, which was a fine thing as the syllables came rapidly.
“I’ve experienced a lot over the last few years and with that I’ve definitely got a better understanding of how potentially short-lived a career can be and how quickly careers can disappear,” he said.
Nobody else talks this way. Everybody else is just happy being in first grade. They do whatever is best for the team. And all as long as they can take it one week at a time.
Not the yogi Cherry-Evans, on a journey of self-improvement.
“I’ve got a really good realisation of where I stand,” he said. “How replaceable I am and where I stand in this game.”
It was a slow news day, dragged down by a fresh round of debate on Josh Dugan missing the team bus, a nod to the old-style footballer, and Ash Taylor’s plans to take himself to market.
“This club means a lot to me,” Cherry-Evans said. “I obviously went through a few things in the last few years but, ultimately, it was all worth it because this is the club I really love and a place I’m really comfortable with and happy to live here for the rest of my life.”
DCE’s vocabulary reflects his ambition in life.
He will not stay still.
It caused him problems in recent years.
His unusual syntax and his backflip on going to the Gold Coast to stay at Manly for truly big dollars, along with a dip in form, made him appear not truly sincere.
One thing footy fans hate is a fraud and Cherry-Evans gave them something to not trust.
It happened within the game, too.
They can say all they want in Queensland, and usually do, but Cherry-Evans is on the outer for Maroons selection and it was never more obvious than when Johnathan Thurston went down and Anthony Milford got busted and the Maroons continued whistling and kicking stones and selecting players around him.
Michael Morgan and Cameron Munster and, from the clear blue sky, Ben Hunt.
Yet nobody can ignore Cherry-Evans’ form this year.
Just last week he kicked a field goal with his right foot to send the game into extra time and then, in the sudden-death minutes, kicked another with his left foot to win the match.
On Saturday, he runs out against the hot young halfback in the competition, a rookie who plays himself closer to an Origin jersey every game he suits up.
Nathan Cleary is where Cherry-Evans once was.
Cleary is 19 and plays with veteran poise. Midway through the season his improvement was so rapid he got picked for City Origin and debate began over the right age to pick him for NSW.
How long do you wait? And when do you overlook the needs of the player for the needs of the state? Nobody will admit to it but it is a serious conversation.
The same conversations were once spoken about Cherry-Evans, until it all soured.
Cherry-Evans made his debut at 22 in 2011 and led Manly to a premiership that season before Australia coach Tim Sheens picked him to tour with Australia. What a future this kid had.
He was immediately considered next in line for when Cooper Cronk or Thurston retired from representative football.
For Queensland, for Australia, the lot.
It took two years for Queensland to acknowledge as much when he was picked in Game III of the 2013 Origin series.
Two years later it was gone, though. His focus drifted from his football every week to the bigger world and the Titans backflip happened about the time Queensland picked him for the last time.
During the same season, he was booed when he played against Brisbane and Gold Coast in Queensland.
LISTEN! With finals spots on the line this is one of the biggest rounds of the year. Paul Suttor, Michael Carayannis and Matt Logue have all the news as the NRL finals loom.
Somewhere in there it all began to look like football was a means to an end and nobody was sure what that end was. Did he want to be the next Matthew Johns? The next Karl Stefanovic?
Who could be sure.
Cherry-Evans and Cleary are seemingly at opposite ends of their Origin careers. Yet they run on to Brookvale as the two best halfbacks of the season.
And everything is at stake.
The loser must wait the best part of 24 hours for St George Illawarra’s result against Canterbury to be sure they qualify for the finals.
Manly are out of confidence. Their temperament is of a waiter who just knows he is going to drop the tray full of champagne glasses at some point during the night.
Penrith’s form might be the fool’s gold.
They have won seven of their past eight but their only wins against top-eight opponents all season are a 16-8 home win over Manly in round 18 and a 24-16 victory at Pepper Stadium against a busted North Queensland.
No two halves have contributed to their team’s results as heavily or as consistently as DCE and Cleary this season.
Still, it appears unlikely either will make their way into the Australian team for this year’s World Cup.
Cronk will be the starting halfback and coach Mal Meninga will decide among James Maloney, Milford, Morgan and Munster for the six jersey and the utility job on the bench.
Cherry-Evans is fighting back — the one way many began to doubt he was capable of doing — with grit and authenticity.
*****
A FUNNY thing happened not so long ago when the clubs were deciding with the NRL what their salary caps would be so they could find agreement and take it to the players as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations.
Melbourne and North Queensland were arguing for the cap to go down.
It surprised many of the other chief executives and chairmen in the room. After all, they had some of the highest-paid players on their books and common sense would suggest they would want the cap to rise so they could put a talented roster around them.
END OF SEASON: The best of 2017
BATTLE: The end of a rivalry which defined an era
Not, in a big surprise to many, the NRL has permitted Storm and the Cowboys to have a testimonial game for Cameron Smith and Johnathan Thurston next year which will pocket each about $750,000 on top of their salaries.
Smith and Thurston are the two most popular players in the game and deserve their reward even if it did catch the rest of competition by surprise.
Other clubs are now wondering what the rules are around testimonials. No other club stalwarts are as loved around the game as Smith and Thurston, but a fair argument can be pitched that they are within their own community.
We now know the NRL started working on the criteria almost 12 months ago when both the Storm and Cowboys first made approaches about the game.
However, they have set the bar so high other clubs who don’t have a future Immortal, but have someone loved all the same just like John Sutton, may not have the opportunity to farewell one of their great with a testimonial game.
Road to first grade: When NRL’s next superstar halves will debut
Who is the NRL’s next Lachlan Galvin? We reveal the elite rookie playmakers ready to leave their mark on the NRL and their path to a first grade debut – which for some could come very soon.
Manly, Roosters legend passes away after cancer battle
Former champion halfback Johnny Mayes, who won three straight premierships at two different clubs, has died after a battle with brain cancer.