By Dan Walsh
With a wink-wink and a nod-nod, Daly Cherry-Evans’ next move has already been done.
That prevailing theory, in a rugby league news week that will take some beating, is as good as any. And it’s not without forethought either.
Cherry-Evans is too sharp to be walking out of Manly without knowing he’s a wanted man, says everyone from Andrew Johns to the punter holding up the bar at your local.
A week’s worth of phone calls about the latest NRL soap opera – coming to you live on both broadcast partners – quickly becomes a process of elimination for the 36-year-old’s next destination.
The question of why lends itself to the answer of where Cherry-Evans ends up once a spectacular breakdown in negotiations with Manly is set aside.
And the nods and winks aren’t quite as clandestine, or certain, as people think – especially considering the analogy used by figures close to the veteran playmaker.
Daly Cherry-Evans decides: Where will the veteran halfback be in a year’s time?Credit: Monique Westermann
After 15 seasons and with his Manly tenure coming to an end, Cherry-Evans is playing, in some respects, with house money.
He’s won a premiership, captained Queensland to Origin series wins and played longer and better than he ever thought possible. So with this next move, they say he has something of a free hit and can’t really lose.
Cherry-Evans has openly acknowledged reaching out to a handful of clubs late last year to gauge interest and his potential market value. The Roosters and Dolphins, leading contenders for his signature, are believed to have been among those.
From the moment he began to consider life beyond Manly – a prospect Cherry-Evans has been coming to terms with for four months, not four minutes like the rest of us – the field has been deliberately narrowed.
“I’m not going to engage with any clubs that I couldn’t see myself genuinely playing for,” Cherry-Evans told News Corp on Thursday.
“So I won’t waste anyone’s time if I decide to play on.”
Canterbury, seemingly needing only an elite game-managing halfback to go from finalists to outright premiership contenders, were touted by many as a dark horse in the Cherry-Evans’ sweepstakes.
Bulldogs boss Phil Gould rarely misses a player he wants. But he won’t hang about either if he feels a player isn’t falling over themselves to meet for a Chinese meal at Canterbury Leagues, and the club publicly withdrew its interest on Thursday evening.
Sources at the Bulldogs say they were given the sense they weren’t among the clubs Cherry-Evans could see himself playing at.
Cherry-Evans has been insistent that he’s still unsure if he will play on next season.
The mind is willing. The body – something of an unknown. Fifteen seasons, 332 games and just 14 missed through injury suggests Cherry-Evans can keep playing.
That he does so as one of the NRL’s top four halfbacks (alongside Nathan Cleary, Jahrome Hughes and Mitchell Moses) is why astute judges talk of a market value well above the $1.4 million, two-year deal that the Sea Eagles belatedly tabled, knowing their skipper wouldn’t contemplate it.
Is Cherry-Evans still worth the squeeze, or will his legacy be tarnished by the mess at Manly?
Sources close to the decorated playmaker have confirmed a release request was put to Manly before the 2024 season and knocked back in the same breath.
Back against the wall … Daly Cherry-Evans.Credit: Steven Siewert
Cherry-Evans was the club’s player’s player in 2023, and his form hardly waned as he led the Sea Eagles to their first finals series under Anthony Seibold last year.
Getting on with things while he weighs up his future doesn’t seem to be a worry for Cherry-Evans, though how this saga affects some Manly teammates is potentially another matter.
The mud of the past week may stick in the eyes of fans, understandably so for some on the hill at Brookvale. But Cherry-Evans has outlasted villainy before. Time and relentless brilliance turned opinion after his backflip with the Gold Coast.
Cast out of the Queensland Origin set-up in the same time period, he eventually returned to the fold and is one of the Maroons’ longest-serving captains.
With an eye to his options, the fact he’s a relentless competitor who plays above all else for a premiership suggests those few clubs with a title conceivably somewhere on the horizon.
Ergo, the Roosters. Coach Trent Robinson said on Thursday that his ears have been pricked.
A young Daly Cherry-Evans playing for Redcliffe.
Penrith’s Ivan Cleary says he doesn’t have the salary cap space. Same story at Brisbane with Michael Maguire. Melbourne have Hughes. Cronulla, Nicho Hynes.
The rest? Trailing behind, the Dolphins included. The Titans salary cap is tied up in forwards and Des Hasler is backing his current halves.
The romanticism of a return to Redcliffe, where his father played in the 1980s and Cherry-Evans lived at various points throughout his childhood, is an obvious lure.
It’s one few observers are willing to completely discount either, chiefly because after the week that’s been, the Dolphins are still there. Still keen. Still cashed up. Still offering the chance to mentor rising halfback Isaiya Katoa and be a key figure in their formative years.
While the failed haggling with Manly over Cherry-Evans’ value is one thing, the general consensus is that his NRL options will land in roughly the same financial ballpark.
Given the salary cap space kept free by the Roosters and Dolphins during the past 18 months, neither seems able to completely blow each other – or another interested party – out of the water.
The links between Cherry-Evans’ management company, James Tedesco and Reece Robson – the Roosters’ key 2026 signing cast in the same mould as club favourite Jake Friend – have been well documented.
So, too, is the prospect of Cherry-Evans and Sam Walker playing behind Spencer Leniu, Angus Crichton, Victor Radley and Lindsay Collins, with Tedesco in charge of it all.
Just as Cooper Cronk and Tedesco once arrived and immediately turned a Roosters rebuild into back-to-back premierships, Cherry-Evans could immediately steer the glamour club straight back into premiership contention.
The parallels with Cronk are obvious. Not least the misplaced notion that Cronk took a back seat to Cameron Smith and Billy Slater during his time at Melbourne.
No-one questioned that once he won two premierships in as many cracks at the Roosters – the ultimate professional and one of rugby league’s great winners all in one.
Cherry-Evans has a premiership from his first NRL season as a 22-year-old. Playing with house money presents the chance to win all over again.
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