Mark Jones isn't going to get a free ride now that he's coach of Newcastle Jets. But he will get a clear run at making a go of one of the toughest gigs in the A-League because he's a local.
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If you think that doesn't matter, or shouldn't matter, then you don't know what makes the Novocastrian football community tick.
Parochial? That doesn't begin to describe it. For the first time since Jim Foley left the Breakers dugout 22 years ago, the local team has a local coach. For the movers and shakers in the Hunter, that makes all the difference in the world.
So just how big is the task in front of the 50-year-old career coach? Massive. Since winning the championship in 2008, the Jets have made the finals just once, collecting two wooden spoons along the way. That's eight seasons of misery for a city, a region and a football community who deserve so much better.
Jones and his assistant, Clayton Zane, will be under no illusion about the level of expectation. "If you've grown up here, you can't bullshit people," says David Lowe, former Socceroo and staunch Novocastrian, told the Newcastle Herald last week. He's right.
That's pressure right where it counts, but my feeling is that Jones and Zane won't buckle under it. Instead they'll thrive on it.
Lawrie McKinna's decision to go local will release a tide of support, goodwill and passion behind the new coaching team. At the very least, it gives them a head start.
Lowe again: "Like a lot of people, I'm probably sick of people automatically thinking that because you come from outside you have better knowledge, better experience, better qualifications. We're probably due one [a local]." Spot on, again, Lowey.
Jones makes no attempt to hide his excitement: "This is my dream job." His task now is to make those dreams come true.
Consider this: Last season the Jets averaged crowds of 9568 despite a general consensus they wouldn't make the finals. No matter, by the close of business on Friday, they had signed up 7151 members for the new campaign, a figure bettered by only four other clubs.
What this shows is what's always been the case. There's a loyalty factor in Newcastle that most other clubs can only envy. From the formation of Newcastle KB United 36 years ago – through the eras of the Rosebuds, the Breakers and now the Jets – that loyalty has not been reciprocated anywhere near enough.
For most of the past 3½ decades, the locals have been taken for a ride by a succession of owners, Sydney-based administrators and various out-of-town players and coaches. Do they resent it? You bet.
So this is one black cloud that may finally have a silver lining. The sacking of Scott Miller and his assistant, Luciano Trani, four weeks out from the start of the season might have been a catastrophe. But what it has done is clear the way for the appointments of Jones and Zane, instantly transforming the mood.
You could see it in Cessnock on a bright spring afternoon on Saturday, when the Jets made it six pre-season wins in a row with a comfortable 2-0 win over an understrength Western Sydney side.
Winning breeds confidence, and the players – kept in harness by skipper Nigel Boogaard – seem to have weathered the storm of the coaching dramas.
Jones spent the match in the grandstand, while Zane handled the sideline duties. But you can't see a coach as driven as Jones waiting too long before he starts patrolling the technical area. Ultimately, it will be his ability to man-manage senior pros after a career in youth and women's football which holds the key.
Against the Wanderers, Andrew Hoole's seventh goal of the pre-season, a geometric finish from a player trying to emerge from a demoralising A-League goal drought, set the Jets on their way.
A group of players who will probably have to rely on collective will rather than individual flair to end eight years of failure look to be heading into the season-opener against Adelaide United in decent shape.
Maybe, just maybe, Newcastle finally has its team back.
McKinna's greatest achievement at the Mariners was connecting the team with the community. He's absolutely determined to do the same thing with the Jets.
Jones is just the fourth local coach (not counting caretakers) in the region's chequered football journey – Ray Baartz, Ken Kaiser and Foley are the others. In Newcastle, it matters if you've got skin in the game.
