Central Coast Mariners head coach Mark Jackson issued an apology to the club’s fans after Saturday night’s 6-0 F3 Derby capitulation at the hands of Newcastle Jets.
Aleksandar Susnjar put Newcastle ahead in the 17th minute before Storm Roux’s red card for an elbow on Jets midfielder Callum Timmins turned the blockbuster clash on its head – two-time reigning champions Central Coast conceded five goals from that point as the Mariners’ slim finals hopes were officially dashed.
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The six-goal margin matched the biggest winning margin in F3 Derby history (Jets 8-2 Mariners – April, 2018).
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“Little bit embarrassed sat here,” Jackson said as he fronted reporters post-game.
“First and foremost, I want to apologise to our supporters who supports us all the time and came out tonight to watch that level of performance. It wasn’t good enough and it’s not acceptable.
“All I can do is apologise for that and give them my word that I’ll try my best to sort it out and make it better for the remainder of the season, and going into next season too to fix those problems.”
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Asked if he sensed anything before the match and if all boxes were ticked, Jackson replied: “All those were ticked in my mind, during the week and how we work. Even in the warm-up today, I always take a step back and my staff go out and to warm the team up.
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“I felt a really good energy from the lads. I felt the focus was good. We had a clear game plan against Newcastle. As soon as we stepped on the pitch, we fell short. Even before the red card, I thought we were second best.
“We talk a lot about duels within a game, and we’re just not winning enough this season. When you don’t win duels, when you can’t go up against players and take the ball off players and come out cleanly and stop them, you don’t win football matches. That’s been proven for us this season. I have to fix that.”
Reduced to 10 men in the 39th minute, Jackson was then asked if the numerical disadvantaged impacted the scoreline.
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“Of course it does,” he replied. “But again, that was our downfall. We spoke about it before the game, controlling our emotions and being up for the fight but you have to control things especially in a derby. We shot ourselves in the foot with that.
“Teams to go down 10 men and don’t concede that amount of goals all around the world in football. It just means you have to be a lot more disciplined. Maybe counter-attacking football more.
“We spoke about that half-time, about fixing it. After two or three minutes, we conceded again. Through us jumping and opening passing lines up and giving them the goal, that’s disappointing. We spoke about that half-time and how we could potentially get back into the game.
“It’s not going to immediate but how our structure and discipline would do that. We showed a lack of discipline in the first few minutes which then makes the task massively, massively hard.”
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After their historic treble in 2023-24, the Mariners find themselves 10th in the standings and nine points adrift of the top six.
When pressed on whether players were playing for their futures, Jackson said: “100%, yeah.
“It’s my responsibility to make the team win. We had that last season. Yes the club turn over players and yes it is a challenge but there’s other clubs with that challenge too, not just us.
“We have to ensure we have a squad and a group of players who can compete to have success. That’s what we want. We had that last season and we’ve fallen way short this season. It’s my job to make sure we can be better and challenge next season.”
