Daly Cherry-Evans unveiling as a Sydney Rooster is a look into a strange new world

It’s not that it didn’t feel right to see Daly Cherry-Evans up there in the Sydney Roosters tricolour — it will just take some getting used to.

Even after the long goodbye from Manly, even after his switch to Bondi was finally confirmed two weeks ago, even after he was papped in training gear on the way to a session, actually seeing Cherry-Evans in red, white and blue still marks a trip to the uncanny valley.

Short of poorly executed AI slop, a trip to an alternate reality, or in a video game set on franchise mode and then abandoned to go feral and indulge in whatever godless ideas it could muster, this did not feel possible until it happened. Cherry-Evans himself said it felt a bit uncomfortable but also exciting.

In the new colours, Cherry-Evans looked and sounded the same as ever. He always presents well, and he knows how this part of the game is played.

He’s as polished a media talent as rugby league has, and boxes too clever to ever give anything away that he doesn’t want to, especially at something like a jersey launch in November.

There will be no gotchas, no lightning rod quotes on his exit from Manly, of which he’s adamant there is no bitterness one way or the other.

He’s looking forward to his return in Brookvale in Round 4, at which he’s sure to be received warmly by a fanbase who never wanted him to leave.

“How it was all managed and why it ended the way it did, they’re stories for another day, and I think it’d be silly for me to stand here in a Roosters jersey talking about what could have been at Manly,” Cherry-Evans said.

“I’m really excited to be here, and I’m proud to be standing here as a Rooster. I’m also proud of my career at Manly. I don’t look at that and think of it as a sad situation.

“It was great to be part of that club’s history for so long, but now I’ve got the opportunity to do it here with another club, and that really excites me.

“The way that the relationships were when I left the club — I get that you guys might make it sound differently — but it’s actually going to be a great experience to go back there and play against my good friends at a place that I’ve got so many good memories of.

“It’s maybe not as daunting or ugly as you guys make it out to be.”

A man is embraced by a crowd after a rugby league match

Cherry-Evans depature from Manly was a lengthy one after he did not confirm his destination until November. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)

That doesn’t mean there’s no feeling, though, and how couldn’t there be? Given Cherry-Evans spent almost half his life as a Sea Eagle, it would be strange if there wasn’t.

Counting lower grades, 2026 will be the first season in 19 years he has saddled up in something other than maroon and white.

The last time he did was back in 2007, when the man he’s fixing to replace in the halves, Hugo Savala, was four years old.

There were no promises of retribution and revenge on the only NRL home he’s ever known, and no proclamation that the oldest man in the league is going to give all these young fellas one last lesson they’ll never forget.

But there’s no mistaking what he has come here to do. Cherry-Evans said he considered other clubs and retirement before settling on the Roosters, who like to say they don’t play the game, they play for premierships.

Saturday Rd 24

Cherry-Evans joins a Roosters team on the rise after a surprise finals berth last year.

The Tricolours are the kind of club which can have the New South Wales Origin utility, Connor Watson, at dummy half for a season, then welcome in Reece Robson, the New South Wales Origin starting hooker.

Any team that can do that and still not have it be their biggest transfer of the summer might just be proof that money really can buy happiness.

Combine that with James Tedesco’s lion in winter Dally M victory, and the rest of the established quality on the roster, plus the emergence and rapid improvement of new talents like Savala, Robert Toia, Mark Nawaqanitawase and Naufahu Whyte in last year’s surprise finals berth, and this is a side, on paper at least, that can cast a long enough shadow that nothing good nor godly can grow in it.