Daly Cherry Evans

Early life

Cherry-Evans was born in Redcliffe, Queensland to an English-born mother and an Australian father. His father, Troy Evans, played as a hooker for the Norths Devils and Redcliffe Dolphins in the Brisbane Rugby League premiership during the 1980s and 1990s. His mother, Kellie Cherry, named Cherry-Evans after dual British Olympic Gold Medalist Daley Thompson. He began playing rugby league for the Redcliffe Dolphins at 5-years-old. At 12 years of age Cherry-Evans moved to Mackay, Queensland with his family and continued to play junior rugby league for the Mackay Brothers. He attended St Patrick's College during his high school years. He also attended Redcliffe State High School and was a part of the reddy boys. At the beginning of 2008 Cherry-Evans was invited by Dennis Moore to trial with the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles and later signed a contract to play for their under-20s National Youth Competition team.

National Youth Competition (2008-09)

Cherry-Evans played 46 games for the National Youth Competition team of Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles over the 2008 and 2009 season where he scored 246 points in total including 24 tries. He was named on the interchange bench of the 2009 Toyota Cup season's team of the year.

Sunshine Coast (2010)

At the conclusion of the 2009 Toyota Cup season, Cherry-Evans found himself behind Trent Hodkinson as Manly's first grade halfback after the departure of club captain Matt Orford. As a result, Cherry-Evans was sent to play for Manly's Queensland Cup feeder club the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles. After captaining the team for most of the season, Cherry-Evans was named the Queensland Cup Player of the Year, and Rookie of the Year. His performances in the side saw him selected to the Queensland Residents team where he was also named team captain.

2011

With Hodkinson moving to play for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Cherry-Evans made his debut for Manly in Round 1 of the 2011 NRL season against the Melbourne Storm at halfback in the Sea Eagles 18-6 loss at AAMI Park. In Round 12 against the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium, Cherry-Evans scored his first NRL career tries in the Sea Eagles 34-10 victory, one of which was set up by a flick pass from Fullback Brett Stewart who while diving for the ball had scooped it up one handed and passed to Cherry-Evans in the same movement. In round 13 against the Bulldogs, Cherry-Evans crossed the try line untouched from a scrum, performed a one-on-one strip on Dene Halatau, and had 3 try assists in a dominating display that saw him named as halfback in the BigPond Sport Team of the Week. In October 2011, English coach Steve McNamara offered Cherry-Evans a starting spot on the England team for the 2011 Four Nations as he is eligible for England through his English born mother Kellie. Cherry-Evans declined the offer, declaring himself available only to play representative football for both Queensland and Australia should he be selected.

Cherry-Evans won the 2011 Dally M Rookie of the Year award, and scored a try in Manly's victory over the New Zealand Warriors in the 2011 NRL grand final. He gave a perfect inside pass for Brett Stewart to score the first try of the match in the 30th minute of the game. His own try just before the game's half time was set up by an audacious grubber kick by Clive Churchill Medal winner Glenn Stewart. The Manly Lock grubber kicked for winger Michael Robertson on his own 20 metre line. Robertson regathered and raced 50 metres down field, evading a desperate tackle from Manu Vatuvei (and colliding with Cherry-Evans in the process, causing a possible obstruction that was not called by the referees), before passing to Matt Ballin who continued the run until tackled only 5 metres out from scoring. On the next play Cherry-Evans received the ball from halves partner Kieran Foran, threw two dummy-passes and scored next to the posts to give the Sea Eagles a match winning 12-2 lead after Lyon's conversion. Manly went on to defeat the Warriors 24-10 to win their 8th premiership, with DCE the first rookie halfback to lead his team to premiership success since "Slippery" Steve Morris won with St George in 1979. Cherry-Evans finished his excellent debut year in the NRL in the 2011 NRL season with him playing in all 27 Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles matches, scoring 7 tries, kicking 25 goals and 3 field goals. He was named by the Rugby League International Federation in its annual awards as the world's best halfback for 2011.

2012

Cherry-Evans played in all 27 Manly Warringah Sea Eagles matches and scored 7 tries, kicked 3 goals and kicked 1 field goal during the 2012 NRL season.

2013

Since he made his debut for Manly in Round 1 of the 2011 NRL season, Cherry-Evans had not missed a single game of the NRL. Due to his selection for Qld in Game III of the 2013 Origin series, DCE missed his first game for the Sea Eagles, missing their Round 18 clash with North Queensland in Townsville. Cherry-Evans won the Clive Churchill man of the match medal in the Sea Eagles 26-18 Grand Final defeat by the Sydney Roosters. Cherry-Evans is the third player since the award's inception in 1986 to win the Medal from a losing Grand Final side, joining Canberra's Bradley Clyde (1991) and St George's Brad Mackay (1993). Cherry-Evans played in 27 matches, scored 11 tries and kicked 2 field goals for the Sea Eagles in the 2013 NRL season.

2014

On 14 February 2014, Cherry-Evans was selected in the Sea Eagles inaugural 2014 Auckland Nines squad. In Round 24 against the Parramatta Eels at Parramatta Stadium, Cherry-Evans played his 100th NRL career match in the Sea Eagles 22-12 loss. On 22 September 2014, Cherry-Evans was selected in the Australian Four Nations train-on squad. On 29 September 2014, at the 2014 Dally M Awards, Cherry-Evans was named 2014 Dally M Halfback of the Year.

2015

Cherry-Evans captained the Sea Eagles during the 2015 Auckland Nines competition. His team lost each of its matches throughout the pre-season competition.

On 6 March 2015, Cherry-Evans revealed he had agreed to join the Gold Coast Titans in 2016 on a 4-year contract.

On 3 June 2015, Cherry-Evans re-signed an 8-year contract with the Sea Eagles, the biggest contract ever signed in rugby league's 107-year history, after backflipping on his Titans contract before the NRL's Round 13 cooling off period expired. During the announcement, Cherry-Evans was quoted as saying: "I definitely left the door open for this speculation to continue because, to be honest, I was always curious to know what offer was going to be on the table from Manly". He was subsequently booed at later games in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. The deal is rumored to be over $10m AUD or $1.3m per season.

2016

In June 2016, Cherry-Evans suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of action for a month,

2017

On 13 January 2017 following the retirement of long time Manly premiership winning captain Jamie Lyon, Cherry-Evans was named as Manly's club captain for the 2017 NRL season.

Statistics

^{Last updated: 27 February 2017}

Allegiance

Although Cherry-Evans was born in Brisbane, the fact that his mother is English made him eligible to represent either Australia or England at the test level. In 2011, England coach Steve McNamara offered Cherry-Evans a starting spot on the English team for the 2011 Four Nations tournament. Cherry-Evans declined the offer, declaring himself available only to play representative football for both Queensland and Australia should he be selected.

Australia

In October 2011, coach Tim Sheens named Cherry-Evans in the Australian Four Nations squad. He made his test debut for Australia against Wales and scored a try at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham. He was selected for Australia's 2012 Anzac Test against New Zealand but did not take to the field.

Cherry-Evans was selected in the Kangaroos 24 man squad for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup squad, playing in 5 matches and scoring 2 tries. His form in the tournament saw him selected to play from the bench in Australia's 34-2 win over New Zealand in the 2013 Rugby League World Cup Final played in front of an international record attendance of 74,468 at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester.

Cherry-Evans' form in the early part of the 2014 NRL season saw him secure a position on Australia's interchange bench for the 2014 ANZAC Test in the Kangaroos 30-18 win over New Zealand at Sydney Football Stadium.

Queensland

Queensland coach Mal Meninga selected Cherry-Evans as the 18th man for Game I of the 2012 and 2013 State of Origin series but he did not play in either game. He made his State of Origin debut for Queensland as an interchange in Game II of the 2013 series in front of a home crowd at Suncorp Stadium. Cherry-Evans played his part in Queensland's record breaking eighth straight State of Origin series win, coming on late in Game III, again as a makeshift back rower, as the Maroons held on against NSW to win a close game 12-10 in front of an ANZ Stadium record crowd of 83,813 fans.

Cherry-Evans also remained on Queensland's bench for Game I of the 2014 State of Origin series, in which incumbent halfback Cooper Cronk suffered a fractured arm, rendering him unavailable for Game II. This saw Cherry-Evans move into the starting halfback role for the loss which meant the end of the Maroons' 8-series winning streak. Cronk's recovery in time for Game III saw Cherry-Evans return to the interchange bench.