Michael Crawley has worked as an assistant coach at the Raiders, Knights and Cowboys as well as a coaching consultant with the Dragons.
When Peter V’landys talks expansion and the powerbrokers start hand-wringing that there are not enough quality players to stretch the competition, it’s time to zoom out and look at places like Mackay.
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I spent 2020 coaching up there through the middle of the COVID chaos when the rest of the game ground to a halt, and that town left a permanent mark on me. Easy going country people have life pretty well worked out, moving to a different drum than the city folk. They put in the hard yards. When they knock off, they like a cold beer with mates, and if the fish are biting, well they hook up the boat and they go fishing — it feels like a jump back to a simpler time.
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Daly Cherry-Evans of the Roosters in action during the round 25 NRL match between Sydney Roosters and Wests Tigers at Allianz Stadium, on August 23, 2026, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
I remember when I was coaching the Mackay Cutters, we had a small staff, and one day I thought it would be nice to take the girls down to the pub for a counter lunch. I ordered a Coke Zero — you know, thinking about getting back to work and all — and when I asked the girls what they wanted to drink, the three of them answered in unison: pots of Great Northern. I realised right then and there the difference in the north.
While the locals are living right, they are also turning out diamonds on a shoestring budget. Watching them up close, you quickly realize why they produce players who play eyes-up, instinctive footy: the locals know their game inside out, and they live and breathe it from the cradle.
That region has produced a staggering line of current NRL talent: DCE, Reuben Cotter, Tom Dearden, Dane Gagai, Kalyn Ponga, and young Jaxon Purdue. And that is just today’s crop. They follow a long, proud trail blazed by old-school legends like Wendell Sailor, Dale Shearer, and Martin Bella. These are not robotic, assembly-line players; they are instinctive footballers developed in their formative years right there in Mackay, backed by volunteers and communities keeping grassroots footy alive.
A young Daly Cherry-Evans playing in Mackay.Source: News Corp Australia
Country kids know it’s no use crying over spilt milk. When the Roosters walked off the field against Penrith without the win—yet proved they belonged toe-to-toe with the benchmark for 80 minutes until a late field goal split them—DCE walked straight into the sheds and owned it, apologising to his team. That is pure accountability. You take it on the chin, don’t look for excuses, and move on. It’s the kind of honesty that earns ultimate respect, and by Monday morning, he was already onto the next job.
While every media critic with a pause button and a whiteboard spent the week telling anyone who will listen how Daly Cherry-Evans should have stood three metres deeper, taken the kick a tackle earlier, or run it instead, DCE knew he didn’t have 20 replays to pick apart micro-decisions. When the game was hanging by a thread, he called for the footy and backed his boot. History says he will ice it next time, and that is why the Roosters brought him to Bondi.
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How you value a player isn’t about whether they stood three metres deeper on a single play. It is measured by the sheer volume of detail opposition coaches have to put into their preparation just to survive him, and I know that headache firsthand from sitting in the coaches’ box trying to solve the puzzle.
When you sit down to game plan against DCE, you know you are fighting psychological warfare. But you have to separate what he does with the ball from what he does to you without it.
When the Roosters have the footy, that is when the real torture begins. The opposition back five sit in video sessions all week knowing they cannot cheat an inch forward, because the second they creep up, he drops a 40/20 right in their lap. If his team gets him over halfway, he will pinpoint a kick into the corner where chasers compress, or launch an aerial bomb that lets his outside backs soar. That is how pressure is built, because the more he does it, the more panic creeps in to force a bad pass and an error—and that is right when his good ball game comes alive. It drives coaches absolutely mad because you can spend all week ticking every box, and he still finds a way to make the difference when the game hangs in the balance.
Then you flip the coin to when your side has the ball, and that is where you try to get square with him. He loves to jump out infront of the defensive line to rush the play and spook the ball players, because the second they see him right there in front of the line, they second-guess whether to kick in behind him or try a show-and-go themselves. But by the time they have processed that hesitation, he has already recovered and slid right back into the line where he is supposed to be.
Daly Cherry-Evans of the Roosters warms up before the NRL Qualifying Final match between the Penrith Panthers and Sydney Roosters at CommBank Stadium on September 13, 2026, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
As a coach looking at how to break him down there, you know blokes like Nicho Hynes and Braydon Trindall will look to isolate him and hit a drift line runner heading straight at his channel. But you also know you have to make him burn defensive energy to blunt his attacking game. Trindall is carrying a shoulder issue into this contest, and a competitor like Cherry-Evans knows it just as well as anyone. He will make sure Trindall has twenty tackles plus to test that shoulder as fast as possible to get his mind focused on physical preservation rather than attacking flair.
Daly Cherry-Evans walked straight into first grade as a rookie in 2011 and steered Manly all the way to a premiership at just twenty-two years old—the exact same age Isaiya Katoa is right now. Everyone in the game loves to talk about Katoa and how he wows us every weekend with his poise, but back then, Cherry was that exact kid already winning comps. Two years later, he played a grand final masterclass against the Roosters that earned him a Clive Churchill Medal even though his side finished second on the scoreboard, becoming one of a very select few players in history to win the best-on-ground honour from a beaten team. He has gone into the furnace of State of Origin time and time again, pulling on that Maroon jersey and captaining Queensland through series wins, getting the job done when the pressure would crush a lesser man.
Manly Sea Eagles Daly Cherry – Evans celebrates their win in the NRL Grand Final at ANZ Stadium in Sydney, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011. Manly defeated the Warriors 24 – 10. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)Source: AAPDaly Cherry-Evans of the Maroons holds aloft the State of Origin Shield after game three of the State of Origin series between New South Wales Blues and Queensland Maroons at Accor Stadium on July 12, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
Every time you lace the boots at this end of a career, you are walking a tightrope. Sport doesn’t hand out fairy tales just because you’ve had a great run, and every single game in September carries the brutal reality that it could be your last. But players of that calibre don’t spend a second worrying about the exit door—they just back themselves to kick it wide open one more time.
DCE will be ready for this test. He began building that competitive edge all those years ago on the junior fields up north, and he has committed his attention to detail in the NRL seven days a week for 15 straight years.
Yeah, he’ll be cherry ripe.