The 28-year-old was well below his best in 2016 and delivered his worst season to date.

Manly suffered accordingly to miss the finals for the second successive year and garner their worst finish since 2004.

The halfback was once touted as a future Maroons ace after making six appearances for Queensland and 11 for Australia following a maiden premiership in his first season at Manly.

But things went south after he back flipped on his Titans contract in mid-2015 before signing the most lucrative contract in NRL history that will see him at Manly for life.

The off-field noise and the expectations that came with such a massive contract seemed to weigh heavily on his shoulders last year, but after a strong pre-season highlighted by being named Sea Eagles captain, has Cherry-Evans primed for a successful season.

"I'm looking forward to this year, to hopefully put me back on the map," Cherry-Evans told AAP.

"We definitely had a lot of excuses and reasons to not play well last year and we probably bought into them, myself included.

"This year I feel as though the playing group won't give themselves an opportunity or excuse to lay down. I think that's going to be a great trait of ours this year."

"It definitely was a lot harder to watch the finals series last year. To be honest, I didn't watch too much of the finals series because it really