Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf has poured cold water on their pursuit of Daly Cherry-Evans, revealing no discussions have taken place while explaining his outfit are “extremely close” to turning their fortunes around.
The Dolphins went down 20-12 in the battle of Brisbane, compounding what has been a horror start to the season with four losses in as many games.
However, it was Cherry-Evans’ contract saga that was a hot topic, with Woolf admitting the representative superstar would be an ideal mentor for young gun Isaiya Katoa.
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“He certainly could be, there’s no doubt there,” Woolf said.
“But we have to worry about how we are going to get a win next week, not what could happen next year.
“I’ve made plenty of comments on that, I don’t need to comment any more and what hasn’t changed is there hasn’t been any discussions.
“So lets worry about tonight and worry about how we are going to get better next week.”
Meanwhile, skipper Tom Gilbert was taken aback when asked if he’d like to see Cherry-Evans join him in Redcliffe next season.
“I haven’t thought too far ahead to be honest, he’s obviously a quality player and anyone like that we would like at the club,” he said.
“But I’m not worried about next year, we have a very capable squad and I’m focused on getting our first win and getting this season started.”
Following Cherry-Evans’ midweek contract bombshell, Woolf admitted the Dolphins do have the cap space to make a play for his services
“If there’s genuine interest, we’d love to have a conversation,” Woolf said to The Age on Thursday.
“We’ve got space in the cap, that’s not a problem. We’ve been very smart in how we’ve managed the cap to make sure we do have opportunities for good players when they become available.”
But outside of their pursuit of the gun halfback, Woolf was adamant the Dolphins will bounce back in the coming weeks.
The Dolphins made 10 errors to their opponents six, while also having a completion rate of only 78 per cent compared to the Broncos’ 89 per cent.
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Their loss came down to errors and a failure to capitalise on field position, according to the rookie coach.
“We’ve had two pretty good weeks at training… there’s a couple of things we can clean up, and that’s what the game is,” he said.
“We’re not a mile off at all, we’re extremely close. That’s a team that most people would have at the top of the ladder.
“I thought we were right in the contest for a really long period, so we certainly aren’t far off we just have a little bit of cleaning up to do.”
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