http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...eammate-who-died/story-fni3fr51-1227396324024
State of Origin game 2: Daly Cherry-Evans to honour friend and former teammate who died
- PETER BADEL AND TODD BALYM
- THE SUNDAY MAIL (QLD)
- JUNE 14, 2015 12:00AM
UNDERFIRE Maroons halfback Daly Cherry-Evans will carry a heavy heart into the biggest game of his Origin career after being left stunned by the death of a former junior teammate.
Just days after being booed at Suncorp Stadium last Friday week, Cherry-Evans was forced to come to terms with the shock passing of Intrust Super Cup star, 25-year-old Grant Giess.
On Monday, Giess will be laid to rest before family and friends in Brisbane.
Two days later, Cherry-Evans, 26, will honour their friendship before an estimated 90,000 fans at the MCG in his moment of reckoning in Origin II.
Cherry-Evans with Grant Giess in 2007.
When he runs out in the Queensland No.7 jumper many believe he was destined to wear, Cherry-Evans is entitled to reflect on his journey from park-footballing nobody to budding Origin star.
Eight years ago, Cherry-Evans and Giess were the axis around which the Wests Panthers Colts side operated.
As this Wests team photo obtained by
The Sunday Mail shows, they were baby-faced teenagers chasing their footballing dreams.
Cherry-Evans, his thick mop of hair as spiky-sharp as his footballing brain, was 18 and Wests’ chief playmaker. Giess, then 17, wore No.9, a tough-as-nails, combative hooker who was charged with giving Cherry-Evans slick service out of dummy half.
If the pair weren’t carving up in midfield, they were distributing the ball out wide to Jack Reed, a rugged redhead better known today as the Brisbane Broncos’ British Test centre.
With Cherry-Evans and Giess working in tandem, Wests finished the season third. The following year, Cherry-Evans was snapped up by Manly.
Even without him, Wests surged to the premiership, unearthing another star in future Bronco Matt Gillett, now Cherry-Evans’ teammate in Origin II.
Former Wests secretary Troy Payne remembers Cherry-Evans and Giess being as lethal on the field as they were off it.
DCE (front, third left), Giess (second row, third left) and Jack Reed (second row, second right).
Last year, Cherry-Evans replaced Cronk in the 10th minute of Origin I when the Storm shot-caller broke his arm. Queensland lost 12-8.
In Game Two, Cherry-Evans refused to succumb to a knee injury and played the full 80 minutes. The Maroons lost again, 6-4, and with it went the Origin shield after an eight-year tenure in Queensland.
Easts Tigers coach Craig Ingebrigtsen, who first mentored Cherry-Evans at Wests alongside Giess in 2007, has no doubt the halfback will silence his critics in Origin II.
He has watched his former protege defy the odds since the age of 17.
“Daly worked harder than anyone I coached,” he recalled last year when Cherry-Evans was handed the reins for Origin II.
“He leaves every player for dead in terms of work ethic.
“At Wests training, he used to place cone markers out and say, ‘I have to hit the cones a certain number of times’. If he had 40 kicks, he would want 35 out of 40 hits before he was satisfied.
“He did the same with his passing game. His left-to-right pass had to be as good as his right-to-left pass. Daly would get six or seven footballs and run and pass to the left. Run and pass to the right, over and over.
“He was that meticulous.”
Ingebrigtsen has coached thousands of footballers at junior and senior level in Queensland and still rates Cherry-Evans the smartest teenager he has mentored.
“His footy brain was the best I’ve seen in a young kid,” Ingebrigtsen said.
“Even to this day, I keep in touch with him and he watches every game, studies everything.
“He used to come into my video sessions and pull a game apart.
“He’s very intelligent. He’d say, ‘OK, stop, look here, we can beat them through the ruck there’. Or, ‘Get me a quick play-the-ball and we can get them on this edge’.
“I was amazed a teenager could read the game so well.
“He’s getting everything he deserves now.”
Maroons warhorse Corey Parker backed Cherry-Evans to fill the Cronk void at the MCG.
“It’s unfortunate for Coops, but as Daly has done in the past he will step into his shoes,” he said.
“At some stage in the next couple of years he will probably do that full-time. Daly has been part of the system, he understands the sequence of plays and the way the team runs which is handy and I’m sure he will do a fine job.”
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A TALENTED Queensland rugby league player has become the sixth young player to take his own life in the past two years.
Intrust Super Cup star Grant Giess, 25, was found dead during the early hours of Saturday morning following a night out in Brisbane with his East Tigers team mates.
It is understood Queensland police are investigating the circumstances surrounding his death but are not treating it as suspicious.
West's Tigers prop Mosese Fotuaika, Mackay Cutters' Hayden Butler and Cowboys trio Alex Elisala, Regan Grieve and Francis Winterstein have all taken their own lives over the past two years.
NRL officials are providing support to Giess' team-mates, family and friends.
If you or someone you know needs help, phone Lifeline on 131 114.
