It was when Trent Sainsbury had to consider a return to Perth to become a labourer that the future Socceroo realised he was squandering his golden opportunity in the Central Coast Mariners academy.
In a generation of Mariners youngsters destined for greatness, the “naive” young talent’s expiring contract left little time to show he could improve his work ethic both on and off the pitch. Senior players doubted he ever would.
With a finite amount of spots up for grabs in an A-League squad, Sainsbury occupied his in the early stages of his Mariners stint without understanding what others would do to take that spot off him.
Ultimately, he did enough to earn another chance, signing a fresh deal under Mariners boss Graham Arnold in January, 2012. Just 15 months later he was a key figure in the club’s historic 2012/13 Grand Final triumph.
Now Sainsbury hopes the current crop of Mariners youngsters, whose talents are set to shine in the 2021/22 Isuzu UTE A-League season, learns how quickly everything can change should a golden opportunity be taken for granted.
“I think at the very beginning, I didn’t realise how big an opportunity it was,” Sainsbury told KEEPUP. “I was quite naive with the thinking that football was going to hand itself to me on a silver platter.
“I got the rude awakening when my first two years were up, and (had) the realisation that I wasn’t going to get another contract… I thought ‘you know what? I’m going to have to go back to Perth and become a labourer’.
“I wasn’t working hard enough on the pitch and especially off the pitch as well. I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t treating my body the way it deserved to be treated to be a professional footballer.
“At that time I kind of thought everything was going to fall on my lap. It wasn’t until years later that a few of the older boys from that team actually told me they all said to Graham Arnold at the time, ‘I can’t believe you gave him another contract’.
“I think the story goes that Alex Wilkinson actually said to Arnie, ‘Give Trent a shot, he’s ready’. So I’ve got to tip my hat to him and say thanks for that.”
Central Coast Mariners v Sydney FC
Sunday, December 12 2021
Venue: Central Coast Stadium
Kick-off: 6.20pm AEDT
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Sainsbury is currently plying his trade for Belgian outfit KV Kortrijk, the seventh stop on a decorated overseas stay which has coincided with his rise into a position of authority and respect inside the Socceroos squad, under former Mariners boss and current Australian men’s head coach Arnold.
“I had a good welcoming to life in football as a professional,” he said. “We had a lot of older professionals in the team that took me under their wing, and that helped a lot.
“In the first two seasons there I played pretty much every single weekend with the youth team. I came through with the likes of Maty Ryan, who was just in the team at the start before he left, Bernie Ibini, Mustafa Amini, I think Tom Rogic was there in the youth team for a little bit, Mitchell Duke came through, so we had quite a good youth team.
“It would be difficult for a youth system in Australia to continue to produce top, top youngsters. There’s always going to be dribs and drabs that come through, but the Mariners always seem to consistently find a bunch of good youngsters and put them together in a competitive team, and they come through together, which is always nice.”
The Mariners academy where Sainsbury once flourished is experiencing another healthy spell of talent production, evident in the names featuring on the team sheet under head coach Nick Montgomery this season.
The Mariners’ 2-1 F3 Derby win over Newcastle Jets in Round 2 was evocative of that fact. Nine of the 18 players named in the playing squad on that day came through the ranks of the club’s academy, including goalscorers Josh Nisbet and Jacob Farrell who led the travelling side to its first and only win of the season to date.
Overseas, meanwhile, the likes of 20-year-old Alou Kuol and industrious central midfielder Gianni Stensness will continue to fly the Mariners flag abroad as two of the club’s highest profile youngsters to make European moves after cutting their teeth in the Mariners academy.
As the season tracks into Round 4 and beyond, the brigade of Mariners youth products will continue to play a heavy role in the club’s story this season. But Sainsbury believes it’s not enough for these Mariners’ prospects to simply occupy a space on the team sheet if they wish to follow in his footsteps. He felt it himself when realising his career hung on a knife’s edge before it had even got going.
“It’s an incredible lifestyle there,” he said. “I don’t think you can ask for much more in terms of living on the beach, and going every day to work with your friends and kick a football about.
“As a youngster coming into that sort of environment, it’s amazing. But at the same time you’ve just got to realise you’ve got an incredible opportunity and not take it for granted.
“There’s only so many spots in the squad, and if you’ve got one of them there’s going to be people out there that are ready to take that spot off you. You’ve got to keep working hard so you maintain a contract.
“If you look at the statistic of players that come out of youth teams, secure first-team contracts and kick on from that first contract to get a second contract, I don’t think the numbers would be that high. You’ve got to be doing something that the other players aren’t doing to deserve that contract.
“You’ve got to treat every single day as a chance to gain 1%. You can go to training and treat it as another day at the office, but at the same time it could be your last ever training session.
“If you go to training every single day with the view that ‘today I can become a 1% better footballer and better person’ then you know you’re going to be sticking around in the game for a long time.”
