Willie Mason has launched an extraordinary attack on former Manly teammate Daly Cherry-Evans, declaring that greed will ruin his legacy as a player.

Last week, another former Sea Eagles player, Anthony Watmough, revealed Cherry-Evans had ignored his plea to take a pay cut so the star-studded side, which won premierships in 2008 and 2011, could stay together.

Mason, who is friends with Watmough, could understand his frustration.



“Obviously, (Cherry-Evans has) been playing on his mind, it’s been pissing him off for ages,” Mason told SkipiTV.

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“Pretty much tells the team to f… off, 'I want an upgrade', so it cost other players.

“I’ve spoken to guys like Brett Stewart, and some other guys, and they’re like, ‘it’s not going to be the first one to come out.’

“Glenn Stewart got shifted to Souths, you think Brett Stewart wasn’t filthy? You think Steve Matai wasn’t filthy?

“Do you think that whole crew that was together was f….. livid? They were.

“The whole narrative has changed now with Choccy coming out, and just really laying it down on him, and Choccy wasn’t lying, because he was there through that whole thing, and he’s seen it all unravel.

“He took Cherry-Evans under his wing, and looked after him.

“And he told Cherry, ‘we’ve been taking pay cuts to stay together’.

“I was there in 2015, I’ve never seen, never been involved in a team, that I could just see such a divide in a club.

“It was because of Cherry-Evans.

“All this shit that’s been happening around him, like, something’s wrong.”

Mason says the fact Cherry-Evans is continually overlooked by Queensland selectors gives an indication of the regard, or lack thereof, that other players hold him in.

“Why is he one of the most talented kids that can’t even get in a Queensland squad?” Mason asked.

“You’re picking Ben Hunt. He’s a better player than Ben Hunt.

“There was a decision where, (Michael) Morgan or him could have got picked, in a decider.

“Obviously, the senior playing group went, ‘you know what, let’s pick Morgan.’

“So, players didn’t want to play with him.”

Mason recalled that while at the Bulldogs, where he won a Clive Churchill Medal in their 2004 premiership win, the players were forced to take pay cuts in order to have success.

This was especially necessary, given the club were stripped of 37 competition points in 2002 for gross salary cap breaches.

Mason said if a player put money ahead of the team’s success while he was at Canterbury, he would have told the player where to go.

“I was at the Bulldogs, we took pay cuts to stay together,” Mason added.

“Because you want success, you want to win, you want to win premierships, you want to stay together because you don’t want to lose anyone.

“And if some little prick like that, if I was at the Bulldogs, said, ‘I’m holding out for another $500,000’, I’d say to the coach, ‘f… him off’.

“I don’t want him in our crew.”

Mason had one season at Manly, back in 2015, his final year playing in the NRL.

He detailed the story of how Cherry-Evans told his teammates that he was joining the Gold Coast Titans, which was a deal he reneged on later that year.

“He signed with the Titans for like 10 years,” Mason said.

“And then there was a big f….. meeting, Cherry-Evans has got something to say.

“I just signed a deal with the Titans boys, blah blah blah.

“I’m like, who gives a f…, you don’t hold a meeting about that.

“No one cared.”

When asked whether his chase of big-money contracts has ruined Cherry-Evans’ legacy, Mason was frank in his response.

"It obviously has, if you have a look at his whole career now, it’s all been about money,” Mason said.

“People don’t want you if you are all about money.”