A white-hot Manly have announced themselves as a premiership force this season with a historic 54-0 thrashing of a poor Parramatta outfit at Lottoland.
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As temperatures soared close to 40 degrees on Sunday, the Eels got burnt in what was their biggest ever loss to the Sea Eagles.
The nine-try romp also marked the fifth biggest win in Sea Eagles history, as well as the Eels' largest defeat in the Brad Arthur era.
Arthur admitted fans had every right to criticise their performance as soft.
"That's fair. We can only go on the actions and the evidence, the evidence wasn't great. We were blown off the park. It's like we weren't playing the same game," Arthur said.
"We were very embarrassed by that performance."
Compounding the loss was a heavy concussion to hooker Cameron King, who was stretchered from the field after copping a knee to the head from Shaun Lane in the first half.
Tepai Moeroa and Brad Takairangi also picked up head knocks in the second half, while Mitchell Moses was sin-binned for the second week in a row.
The Sea Eagles were leading 30-0 when Jake Trbojevic scored their sixth try in the 54th minute, prompting the ground announcer to lay the boot into the visitors.
"Scoreboard matching the temperature here at Lottoland," he told the 10,502 crowd.
But the home side went on to heap further misery on a stunned Eels outfit, with Curtis Sironen and Lloyd Perrett crossing for soft tries through the middle.
Cherry-Evans rubbed salt into the wounds by sealing their first win of the season with a 68th minute penalty goal that brought up the half-century.
His only flaw was a missed conversion of Jorge Taufua's 79th minute try from the sideline, finishing with a personal tally of 22-points.
Sea Eagles coach Trent Barrett said he was particularly pleased with his team's defence.
"I was confident we'd play well today but I certainly didn't expect the scoreline that it finished up. I'm just more pleased that we could hold them to zero," Barrett said.
"We had to be disciplined there at the back end. It would've been easy to put the cue in the rack, particularly how hot it was.
"But that's what I was most proud of, that we could stick to our guns and be disciplined with and without the ball, and come away with a really good win. Gives a lot of confidence."
The Eels completed the first set of the match but it was all downhill from there, failing to get through a play-the-ball for the next 15 minutes.
And it was Cherry-Evans that almost single-handedly put the Eels to the sword in a 25-minute burst, beginning with his individual effort in the fifth minute.
He then nailed a 40-20 that led to Api Koroisau's try from dummy half, forced a line drop out that resulted in Addin Fonua-Blake's try and assisted on Curtis Sironen's try soon after that.
Australian Associated Press
