‘Stuffed this up’: Journo eviscerates Manly over DCE situation

The Manly Sea Eagles have been torn to shreds for how they handled negotiations before a star player dropped a bombshell on them.

Manly have found themselves in the gun 24 hours on from Daly Cherry-Evans’ bombshell decision to walk away at season’s end.

The Sea Eagles and the NRL were rocked on Monday night when the 36-year-old confirmed his tenure at the club would be coming to an end.

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After reports of Cherry-Evans’ decision first emerged, news dramatically broke during Fox League’s NRL 360 that Manly was making him a revamped offer.

Less than two hours later, Cherry-Evans rejected that deal, which was reported to be worth $1.5 million over two-years to keep him at the club through to the end of the 2027 season.

The shockwaves of the star’s decision continued to reverberate on Tuesday with News Corps’ Paul Crawley putting the club in the gun for butchering their handling of it all.

“How could you be blindsided by your star player, your longest serving club player, your captain who has been debating whether to play on or not since last year,” Crawley said on NRL 360.

“And you get blindsided on a day when he’s going on a TV show, I just don’t see how … they’ve stuffed this up.

“They had ample time, he’s in their backyard. He’s one of the top three if not four playermakers in the game.

“(Manly chief executive Tony) Mestrov said it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction and that he hasn’t been lowballed. Yes he has. That offer yesterday, that’s a low ball offer for a top halfback in the game.”

Cherry-Evans is moving on from Manly. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

NRL journalist Danny Weidler echoed a similar sentiment to Crawley, taking aim at the club for how they’d managed the process.

“They said they would make an offer to him if other clubs made a firm offer,” he said.

“Is that the way you treat a bloke who has been at your club for 15 years? Do you only make an offer if another club makes you an offer, or do you say, ‘We really value you, you’ve been great for this club. You’re a club legend. Forget this idea of not playing, we think you’ve got more in you. Here’s an incentive to play’.”

Mestrov and Cherry-Evans have both rejected rumours of anomisty between the player and Manly officials, but NRL 360 host Braith Anasta believes there simply has to be something behind it all.

“What I find interesting and all a bit strange, he was free to negotiate from November 1 last year,” Anasta said.

“By December he told them he was moving on. He gave them a months time to negotiate a deal, which apparently was only a one-year deal.

“But he didn’t give them much more than a month to come up with a new deal, whatever it may be.

“That suggests to me something is going on there. If he wanted to stay there he could have taken a few more months now to come up with an agreement and a deal that would have suited both parties.

“It tells me that if he was so quick to make a call to move on from Manly ... he wanted to go.

“There has got to be a reason for it.”

Manly CEO Tony Mestrov spoke to the media on Tuesday. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

Cherry-Evans addressed the saga on Tuesday and said while the decision wasn’t easy, it was the right one for him and his future.

“The club is always going to have a soft spot in my heart, and I am going to love the club forever. but as for how the club treats me beyond this, I don’t know. but I feel like it’s going to be okay,” Cherry-Evans said on Nine News.

The long-tenured Manly star said he expected some blowback from the supporter base, but said he wasn’t worried about what’s to come.

“To be honest, no, I’m not worried. I’m not saying that’s not going to happen. it would be naive for me to think that people aren’t going to say something, and that’s understandable. but I’m not worried about it. no, because I know that there’s so much love and support from a lot of people at the club.”

When asked about how he felt in the lead up to making the decision to call time on his career he joined back in 2011.

“I wouldn’t say sleepless (nights), but a lot of a lot of different emotions over the last couple of months. I guess there’s been excitement around that. something new is coming, whether that’s a retirement plan or playing somewhere else. so that’s, you know, that makes me a little bit nervous and definitely excited. but I definitely get sad, you know, that sort of I’m leaving a part of my life that’s been the last 15 years.”

Cherry-Evans said he elected to go public with his decision now to try and take focus away from the ongoing speculation and allow the club to focus on the task at hand.

“The main reason why I’m doing it is to take away the disruption and I get people might speculate on what’s next for me, but we can now focus on our season. the club can focus on this season and also in the background plan for life beyond me. so a lot of the purpose behind coming out now is so that we can all move on and move forward.”

Manly will be in action on Sunday when they take on the Parramatta Eels from 4:05pm with all eyes for sure to be locked in on Cherry-Evans.

Originally published as ‘Stuffed this up’: Journo eviscerates Manly over DCE situation