What will be will be: DCE ready for date with Maroons destiny

Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans insists he does not know if he has lost the Queensland captaincy and played his last State of Origin game for the Maroons. 

Intense speculation surrounds Queensland coach Billy Slater's call on DCE's future in the Maroons jersey and whether he is poised to end the 36-year-old playmaker's 26-game Origin career.

Cherry-Evans was subdued in Queensland’s 18-6 loss to NSW in the Origin opener but bounced back with a standout performance in Manly’s 34-6 thumping of Brisbane at Brookvale three days later. 

Supposedly on notice to produce a similar showing against Newcastle at McDonald Jones Stadium on Thursday night to try to extend his Origin career, Cherry-Evans was steady but was part of a Manly team that lost 26-22 in extra-time after leading 16-0 at half-time. 

“I don’t know. We’ll find out Monday or Sunday,” Cherry-Evans said when asked if he had done enough to retain the Queensland No.7 jersey. 

Asked if Slater or the Queensland selectors had given him any indication of his status, he said: “You always find out on Sunday or Monday.” 

“I genuinely don’t know what has been said,” he continued. 

“I understand it’s a pretty busy period when it comes to my name, but I'm just doing my best to keep my head down, train and play with the Manly boys, and be a good Dad.” 

With or without their skipper, the Sea Eagles hope to welcome back Tom Trbojevic and Jason Saab from injury when they face the Titans at Cbus Super Stadium next Friday night. 

After the Knights had fought back from a 16-0 half-time deficit to tie the game at 16-16 midway through the second half, Manly looked to have steadied the ship when Tommy Talau scored under the posts in the 67th minute and Reuben Garrick converted for 22-16. 

Cherry-Evans thought Manly should have gone on with the job from there but Newcastle finished with tries to Fletcher Sharpe to force extra time and Kalyn Ponga’s match-winner in the second minute of golden point.

It was the eighth time this season that the Knights had been held scoreless in the first half but Manly coach Anthony Seibold feared a response from a “spirited” Newcastle team that had lost its previous four home games. 

“They’ve made four of the last five finals campaigns, so they’ve been a consistent team. It’s hard to make finals year upon year, and they’ve shown that, so there’s a ton of class there and fight,” Seibold said. 

“We really suffocated them in that first half but they got some field position and they didn’t give us much field position – I'm not sure how many errors they made in the second half – but they were pretty clean with their execution, so they were always going to fight back. 

“I was thinking that if we could show the effort we showed in the first half, keep competing, we’d be able to close the game out but unfortunately we were unable to.” 

Manly have bounced back and forth between wins and losses for the past seven rounds, and Cherry-Evans said they would strive to become a more consistent team during the second half of the season. 

“Whether it was from errors, our defence – we allowed a lot of points in that half through our defence – we missed a lot of tackles, we allowed offloads, we had a few errors off our kicking game in particular,” he said.

“That first half, there was a lot to like, and that’s obviously got to be the part that we look at for next week. We’re obviously still chasing, as cliched as it is, that 80-minute performance, and that’s what we needed tonight. 

“Inconsistency, it’s definitely something we’ve identified, and we do want to put back-to-back games together. It seems that when we are playing well, it’s really good, and unfortunately when it’s bad, in this competition, you only have to be that five or 10 per cent off and teams are going to beat you. 

“It’s a really close competition, there’s no easy games, no easy weeks, and consistency is probably what everyone’s trying to look for, and we’re no different to a lot of clubs trying to find consistency so we’ll go back to the drawing board. 
“It’s a really important game for us next week in the context of the season.”