Newcastle hails its steely champions
Hyundai A-League championship winning coach Gary van Egmond said his battle hardened side's nous and discipline won through in the 1-0 grand final win over the Central Coast Mariners at the Sydney Football Stadium on Sunday.
Van Egmond, just 18 months into his senior coaching career, was very much like the cat that got the cream after orchestrating a brilliant tactical performance which enabled his players to turn around a 3-0 defeat against the Mariners two weeks ago.
The Jets coach was rewarded for taking a risk with his formation, moving to a back three which proved hard for the Mariners to penetrate and enabled Newcastle to control the midfield for much of the match. While Mark Bridge's winning goal came from an error from veteran Tony Vidmar, van Egmond said the pressure created had made the A-League Premiers tentative.
"We played against them at Bluetongue and Aloisi and Petrovski hold the ball up very well. When you're playing with four at the back and with two central defenders, you tend to sit behind and don't get in front. With the three that allowed us a little more options in terms of getting in front," he said.
"We felt we did quite well in trying to stem their supply and also by the fact of getting in front and keeping the ball, it gave us enough possession in the middle of the park and I felt at times like we played some very attractive football."
Andrew Durante, one of that back three and the winner of the Joe Marston Medal, said the different shape had given the Jets more confidence, both going forward and defending.
"I think the formation that we used today really affected them. Playing three at the back, we played the stoppers in front of them and they couldn't play the ball at their feet which is their strength. I think they didn't know how to deal with that and they didn't know how to cope with that tactic," he said.
Van Egmond decided pretty much straight after the previous loss to the Mariners that the Jets had taken on their local rivals in the wrong way in the second leg of the major semi-final, and that a change in formation was needed.
"We practiced that pretty early in the week. We spoke to the leadership group after the game against Queensland to get their feedback. And we went through some patterns of play in regards to that to ensure everyone knew what their job was," he said.
While all the talk in the lead-up was that the Jets would be tired after playing 240 minutes of football in two weeks, van Egmond was never worried about fatigue in his young team, saying he felt the extra time on the pitch had given his team a fitness edge.
"Not at all. I thought the Mariners had a worse preparation than us in regards to the fact they only played two games in four weeks," he said.
"I'm sure Lawrie (McKinna) had a few things goes through his mind at that stage. For us, we were battle hardened and for us winning that game (against Queensland) we had a lot of momentum and a lot of euphoria and that really carried on to this game."
While refusing to talk about building a dynasty, van Egmond's focus is very much on continuing to build a team which, when he took over in October 2006, was propping up the table.
"The important thing with any football team is to keep your nucleus of your team. We do have a young team and they are only going to get better. Our buying and selling wasn't great this year, especially our overseas contingent but our youth development has been top notch. We need to make sure that we keep the players who have done the job. Stability is the key if you really want to build for future competitions," he said.
And Van Egmond couldn't help mentioning that the blue-collar Jets had achieved Championship status with one of the lowest budgets in the competition and without a marquee player in their Grand Final side.
"We're working off a 1.87 million budget this year, compared with the Mariners which is closer to 2.8, 3 million, including their marquee. We've done it frugally. It's been very satisfying. Is it sustainable? The answer will happen further down the years."