After the “weird feeling” of having a bye in Round 2, Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans can’t wait to take the field against the Eels alongside milestone man Brad Parker and magic man Josh Schuster.
On the back of an impressive first-up home win over the Bulldogs, Cherry-Evans and his teammates return to 4 Pines Park on Thursday to celebrate Parker’s 100th NRL game and launch a new chapter in Schuster’s career as a five-eighth.
“Sitting at home watching Round 2 was really bizarre, it felt like a suspension or something, but I guess a good time to reflect on the start to the year that we had,” Cherry-Evans said on Monday.
“The Eels would have extremely high standards of themselves, especially coming after a grand final appearance last year, so we know what we are in for.
“While it was a weird feeling to have a bye after one game, we’ll have no excuses not to come out and play some high energy, high intensity football on Thursday.”
One man guaranteed to bring the energy is local junior Parker, who has given his heart and soul to the Sea Eagles every time he has pulled on the jersey since his debut in Round 19, 2016.
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“It has taken ‘Parks’ seven years to get there and he has had to work and persevere so much – he’s one of the tougher teammates I’ve played with,” Cherry-Evans said.
“If you just watched him train over those seven years, there’s some days you go ‘how is this guy about to play a game of rugby league this weekend?’ because he just puts so much on the line on the weekend his body gets in some pretty bad states during the week.
“As a teammate I have always respected how courageous he is and the way he can face that physical adversity, he just pushes through it.
“The fact he’s a local junior adds a really special touch. He cares about the area and he cares about the jersey and I think that goes hand in hand with why he plays so tough.”
Coming off a typically solid performance in Round 1, Parker already has his eye in ahead of his milestone game, but for Schuster the challenge is to find his feet quickly after recovering from a calf injury.
The 21-year-old has played just four of his 35 career games at five-eighth but has been anointed as the man to fill Kieran Foran’s No.6 jersey and hopefully form a potent playmaking combination with his skipper.
“Josh trained on Saturday with us and it’s exciting to see him in the side,” Cherry-Evans said.
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“He’s a bigger body [than Kieran] and his ball skills are really silky. The no-look pass, I still don’t know how to do that but he does it so naturally.
“His natural ability is really high level, it’s just about building consistency in your game and the special stuff comes off the back of that.
“If we can get Josh playing a nice, controlled game and let his brilliance shine when the time comes, he’s going to be in for a great career.”
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