NRL 2020 rich list: Daly Cherry-Evans, Ben Hunt salary revealed

There is a familiar face at the top of the NRL 2020 Rich List — which has also revealed the game’s biggest recruitment blunders.

The richest deal in NRL history continues to pay dividends for Manly Sea Eagles superstar Daly Cherry-Evans.

An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has revealed the top 100 highest paid players in the game — as well as those big name players that fall just outside.

The investigation has revealed Cherry-Evans is still the top dog on the pile of the NRL’s top earners with an eye-watering salary of $1.25 million this season.

The Sea Eagles superstar finished ahead of Dragons playmaker Ben Hunt ($1.2 million) and Warriors fullback Roger Tuivasa-Sheck ($1.1 million).

The list reveals many of the game’s top earners have also been spectacular blunders from NRL clubs with many of the players failing to justify their staggering pay-packets.

Injury-plagued stars make up the most obvious cases where clubs have thrown money down the toilet in offering huge money to stars that have struggled to get onto the park, including Broncos utility Jack Bird and Bulldogs five-eighth Kieran Foran.

However, it is not just injuries that have left clubs red-faced with some of the big-money contracts revealed in the list.

The man has no luck.

Among the cases where club’s have failed to get a return on their investments in top NRL talent are the Wests Tigers’ desperate offer to Josh Reynolds for a whopping $850,0000 per season when the club was in crisis mode following the departures of Aaron Woods, Mitchell Moses and James Tedesco.

Reynolds comes in as the No. 15 highest-earning player this season and is surrounded by several similar cases of misery.

Bird’s salary of $975,000 this year leaves him just outside the top 10 — which is all made up of players earning more than $1 million per year.

The list is also hard reading for Broncos star Anthony Milford ($1 million per season), Foran ($1m), Titans halfback Ash Taylor ($1.025m) and benched Dragon Hunt ($1.2).

Daly Cherry-Evans.

They are staggering mistakes in a year when the NRL salary cap is just $9.6 million per club.

Despite the brazenness of the long-term deal, the Sea Eagles will have no regrets about the money thrown at Cherry-Evans to get him to backflip on his agreement with the Titans.

Cherry-Evans is among the highest earning football players in the country, sitting behind only Sydney Swans star Lance Franklin ($1.4 million) and Giants forward Jeremy Cameron ($1.5m), who were the top two players on the AFL Rich List revealed on Sunday.

Cowboys machine Jason Taumalolo is the only forward in the NRL millionaires club, earning $1 million per year in North Queensland.

However, the landscape is beginning to change with Andrew Fifita, David Klemmer and Reagan Campbell-Gillard also featuring among the game’s highest earners.

CHECK OUT THE NRL RICH LIST HERE