“It’s crazy how quickly the season can turn around for teams.

“But I’m backing us to respond – I really am – and if we’re the team we believe we are internally, we’ll respond with a good game of footy at Brookie.”

Manly will be without Curtis Sironen, who will now be out of action for up to six weeks with a knee injury.

Souths showed tremendous courage to get back into the game against Melbourne when they trailed 22-0 early, with Latrell Mitchell a Greg Inglis-like presence at fullback.

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Cherry-Evans knows his kicking game will need to be on song in the wet and against one of the most physically-damaging No.1s in the game.

“He’s finding his feet at fullback, and anyone who has watched enough footy knows fullback is a hard position to learn, and obviously over time he will get better,” Cherry-Evans said.

“He’s shown since the start of the year how much he has already improved.

“I’ve played footy with Latrell at the Aussie level and seen first-hand how good he is. Hopefully it’s not on show Saturday night.”

Manly announced late on Thursday that Hasler would remain at the helm for the next two seasons, with a finals finish required to activate the 2023 season.

Hasler was not in the mood to discuss the particulars with his deal on Friday. “When you’ve been sort of in the game this long, I thought it’d be a lot more simple than that. That’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it?” he said.

Meanwhile, Cherry-Evans, the Queensland skipper, threw his support behind Johnathan Thurston’s addition to new coach Paul Green’s coaching team, while singling out Neil Henry for special praise, especially after he was “in the shadows of Wayne and Mal Meninga last year”.

“It’s good to see that crew back together – it’s a really good mix,” Cherry-Evans said.