{"id":368443,"date":"2025-12-24T08:04:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368443\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T08:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:04:17","slug":"contract-plays-experience-out-experience-in-but-do-the-sea-eagles-improve-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368443\/","title":{"rendered":"Contract plays: Experience out, experience in, but do the Sea Eagles improve? – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Manly Sea Eagles<\/a> enter a totally new era in 2026, with one of the most important pre-seasons in club history now underway.<\/p>\n

For the first time in 15 years, Daly Cherry-Evans<\/a> will not be the halfback at Manly.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old’s move to the Sydney Roosters<\/a> after what can only be described as a disappointing final campaign on the Northern Beaches comes set to an intriguing back drop.<\/p>\n

Manly have new off-field boardroom management following the departure of Tony Mestrov, they have a coach under pressure with Anthony Seibold<\/a> failing to deliver results during his tenure to date, and other big contract questions looming on the horizon.<\/p>\n

But the immediate focus for the men in maroon and white will be to find some degree of success in 2026 after a disappointing finals miss in 2025.<\/p>\n

Their roster moves are certainly intriguing and will paint one of the key storylines heading into 2026, with all attention on Jamal Fogarty<\/a> as he looks to replace\u00a0Cherry-Evans.<\/p>\n

His three-year contract, despite his age, is an enormous show of faith from Manly that they see him as the way forward, and on the surface, it’s difficult to disagree.<\/p>\n

His role in Canberra has been absolutely critical in recent years.<\/p>\n

Two decent stints out injured saw the Raiders struggle to win, while they were a completely different team when the late NRL<\/a> arrival was on the park wearing the lime green number seven jumper that has been made famous by so many great names over the journey.<\/p>\n

Fogarty staying fit for the entire year was the key reason behind Canberra’s dramatic push to the minor premiership, and while they buckled under the weight of finals expectation, that wasn’t a knock on Fogarty, who became part of the Queensland Origin discussion to replace the dropped Cherry-Evans, although ultimately wasn’t selected.<\/p>\n

The thing is, Manly won’t need to change their style all that much to accommodate the arrival of Fogarty for the departure of Cherry-Evans, who again, struggled for form, and certainly consistency, throughout the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Anthony Seibold<\/a> needs to get the best out of Fogarty straight away, and that will start with his kicking game, which is one of the best in the competition.<\/p>\n

As far as game managers and rugby league IQ players go, few, on paper at least, are ahead of Fogarty, and he is one of the rare options who could hold a candle to Cherry-Evans in those areas.<\/p>\n

While Cherry-Evans to Fogarty could be considered a sideways move, or potentially even a small upgrade, there are plenty of other moves throughout the Manly squad as they look to clean out deadwood, promote youthful talent and work other new signings into the side.<\/p>\n

Winger Blake Wilson<\/a>, who was struggling to find game time at the Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a>, joins and could push for a spot on the wing unless the incumbents start the year on fire, while Kobe Hetherington<\/a> had an excellent second half of 2025 at the premiership-winning Brisbane Broncos<\/a> and should slot straight into Seibold’s side.<\/p>\n

Maybe the most underrated signing though is Zach Dockar-Clay<\/a>, who suddenly has a chance to walk straight into the 17.<\/p>\n

The retirement of Lachlan Croker<\/a> after multiple concussion issues has left the club’s number nine jumper open, and Seibold getting the replacement right will be critical to Manly pushing in the right direction over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

Dockar-Clay appears as if he will be in contention for the role alongside Jake Simpkin<\/a>, who was recently re-signed, and youngster Zaidas Muagututia<\/a>, who has, by all reports, been excellent in pre-season training.<\/p>\n

The ex-Rooster’s signing won’t change the universe for Manly, but it certainly adds to the club’s depth in a critical position where they have admittedly been short in recent campaigns.<\/p>\n

You can’t talk about Manly’s signings for 2026, though, without floating through the number of experienced players who have shipped out.<\/p>\n

Jazz Tevaga<\/a>, Toafofoa Sipley<\/a>, Matthew Lodge<\/a> and Josh Aloiai<\/a> have all departed out of the engine room, and while two of those players had little impact in 2025, that is a lot of experience out the door.<\/p>\n

In one way, it’s something of a surprise Manly didn’t look to add another forward on top of Hetherington, although they may still do so between now and the start of the season.<\/p>\n

Still, none of the players who have departed you could argue, with the exception of Croker, are going to be downgrades for the Sea Eagles, so just maybe, a quiet recruitment window with four tactical arrivals is exactly what the doctor ordered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Manly Sea Eagles enter a totally new era in 2026, with one of the most important pre-seasons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-368443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}