Not many clubs in the world blood as many homegrown youngsters as the Central Coast – but it comes at a risk, writes Tom Smithies. This piece was published prior to Central Coast beating Western United 1-0, courtesy of a match winner from teenage super sub Garang Kuol.
Nick Montgomery remembers well the moment he entered the pitch for the first time as a professional footballer – but it says a lot that he remembers just as clearly the games that came soon after.
It was the way that Neil Warnock – then Sheffield United boss – backed Montgomery as he found his feet in the English Championship as an 18-year-old that still comes to mind for the now Mariners boss, as he himself has assumed the role of head coach giving starts to a new generation of talent at Central Coast.
The spectrum of risk and reward from playing a swathe of youngsters is broad; it takes a certain bravery in a coach to accept the former and wait for the latter. But the fact that the youngest two teams in the A-League this season are sitting fourth and sixth suggests they have found the right balance; the kids of Adelaide and the Central Coast are alright.
But they won’t always be, not every week, and that’s the point. “You’ve got to be brave because kids will make mistakes,” says Montgomery. “But that’s also how they grow.”
Crucially he remembers his own youthful mistakes, and what happened next. “I remember how much Neil Warnock believed in me,” Montgomery says. “It didn’t matter if I had a bad game.
“That’s the most important part, a player who knows they have the trust of their coach. People talk about having a culture at a club, and you want players to back each other and push each other. But for that you need the coach to back his players as well as push them.”
The fact that new data reveals how much the Mariners have relied on a coterie of youthful, in-house talent – 17th in the world for playing homegrown players – shows what a highwire act this season has been at times. Already, with three games of the regular season to go, Montgomery’s side has the most points in a Mariners season since 2013-14, with the exception last year; if they were to win their last three games, last season’s renaissance under Alen Stajcic would be equalled.
That all comes after Alou Kuol left and Matt Simon has been injured all season – last year’s two leading scorers gone. The team’s position would be even better now but for the four games where they lost or drew to a goal on 90 minutes or later. But that, it’s worth repeating, is the inconsistency of a young team.
“I don’t forget what it was like to be a young player,” Montgomery says. “But this has been a plan for several years, to educate the boys in a way that includes their mental development – we had a sports psychologist work with the youth team when I was coaching them for instance.
“When I retired as a player and took over the academy I wanted to build that pathway to the first team, and now we can reap the rewards.
“The important thing is they know now what I expect and what being in the first team is all about, what the standards are. It won’t always be smooth: we started the season well, then COVID disjointed everything. Once the boys got through that we had that strange period where we played good football but kept conceding late.
“But the value of that is they can see how, if you stick to your beliefs, then you can come out the other end.
“Some coaches prefer to spend the minimum of the salary cap on regurgitating established players but a lot of our boys have grown up together, they like each other, they like coming into work each day.”
