Newcastle Jets are at the start of their journey under A-Leagues great Mark Milligan but have impressed early en route to the Australia Cup final. The retired Socceroo speaks to aleagues.com.au about moving to the Hunter and his vision for the 2008 champions.
Mark Milligan is in the midst of his first professional head coaching role at Newcastle Jets, and with him comes an unwavering belief.
It is a belief not only in the Jets, but Australian football. That confidence instilled in Milligan is a result of legendary Aussie Ange Postecoglou.
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Milligan worked with the A-Leagues icon at Melbourne Victory and the Socceroos. It is in those environments where Postecoglou’s belief rubbed off on the retired Australia international, and now it is rubbing off on Newcastle as their new head coach tries to unlock the Jets’ potential in the Hunter region.
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“You watch from afar for a long time and I just felt like they haven’t reached potential in terms of where the club is situated,” Milligan told aleagues.com.au. “It’s really a single-club town.
“I saw a lot of similarities to Adelaide. I was very aware of how long it took a club like Adelaide to get to where they’re at now. It takes time.
“For too long, they’ve probably missed a little bit of a beat in terms of the development and being able to bring not just young ones through but being able to really develop local talent. Being a single club town, it has that appeal naturally. I felt, and I might be wrong on this, I just felt that if we were able to sort of harness that again, that would be able to sort of bring back, make sure that we’re getting fans to games.
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“I’d seen first-hand, albeit back in 2009 that the kind of reception the Jets were getting from the fans and during that period, to be honest, we weren’t doing fantastic, but we’re playing a brand of football that was quite aggressive. We had some very good players. We had some very good local players as well, and obviously the Griffith brothers and players like this.
“I just knew if we were able to pull that band aid and start down that path again and really be able to engage local football fans, there’s an appetite for it here. It aligned with my beliefs.
“It’s not just a belief I have for the Jets, it’s a belief I have for Australian football. One coach in particular, obviously being Ange, one thing that really stuck to me was I remember him talking about how he was sick and tired of hearing that Aussie players weren’t good enough to play a certain type of football. But his belief was that if he was to give us the tools, then the sky was sort of the limit.
“That really resonated with me at the time, and it really had an effect on the way that I played the game, in the way I saw the game. It’s something that’s always stuck with me.
“It’s not just something I’ve had planned since I came in with the Jets. I think that’s Australian football in general. If we’re willing to spend the time with the players and really make the effort to help them become better players and to give them the tools to play a certain brand of football, then we need to give them that credit.”
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Milligan sat down to speak to aleagues.com.au after guiding the Jets to an historic 2025 Australia Cup final.
His tenure is in its infancy after replacing Rob Stanton heading into 2025-26 but the Jets’ new era under the A-Leagues great is continuing to take shape.
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Never before had the Jets reached the cup decider but in their first semi-final after 12 years, Milligan’s Newcastle set up a showdown against giant-slaying NPL outfit Heidelberg United on October 4 – not only a chance to claim silverware but qualify for the 2026-27 AFC Champions League Two.
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“When we sit down at the start of pre-season, you want to go deep into the cup,” the 40-year-old said. “Obviously, there are now big rewards for doing well in the cup, but it also means competitive games, albeit different types of games to what you face in the league. Cup football is quite different to league football, but it’s good for us because it’s a little indicator of where we’re at.
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“We set pre-season up in three phases. It’s very much about us, first and foremost, creating habits in players to allow us to play the football we want. Giving them the tools to be able to play, so it doesn’t just sort of happen. We’ve had to break it down.
“It’s not easy and you always go through periods where players want to sort of test our resolve a little bit as well, and see how much we really believe in what we’re doing. It’s good to have these competitive games to be able to show them that we’re on the right track, otherwise it’s just us telling them all pre-season that they’re heading in the right direction.
“It’s still going to take time, and by no means is that a cop out, because I still feel like we can get good results whilst we’re becoming the team that we want to be.”
Milligan is back in familiar surroundings with the Jets.
The retired Socceroo played for Newcastle in 2008-09. After 16 years away, he finds himself at the helm of the 2008 champions.
It came following a brief stint as an assistant under fellow Australian and former A-Leagues coach Peter Cklamovski with the Malaysia national team.
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Milligan followed Cklamovski to Asia after working as Carl Veart’s number two at Adelaide United from 2022-25. However, the two-time Isuzu UTE A-League Championship winner always wanted to be a head coach.
“That desire had always been there,” Milligan said. “Especially over the last 12 months, it felt like I was ready to step into my own role and start to take the responsibility that came with that.”
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Before his Jets appointment, there had been speculation regarding jobs at former clubs Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United.
Though, it was always going to be Newcastle after a standout first interview.
“It came out of nowhere,” he recalled. “Everything that we spoke about, they held true to. It was just a professional process. I thought it was too good an opportunity.
“Obviously there’s always a leap of faith there in terms of backing your feeling in what they’re saying and trusting in what they’re saying. But everything that they did, they were honest about. Everything that they said would happen, happened. All the discussions sort of went the way that I had expected in terms of dealing with a professional club in Australia. From that point of view, it was only the Jets.
“As I said, it came a little bit out of left field. I felt like a few things that had happened before the Jets came about were a little bit of a token gesture, which don’t really sit too well with me.
“I still have to prove myself as a coach, and I’ve still got a long way to go in terms of that, but even in terms of the interview process and things like that. It’s hard to say things about the way you want to your things to be done, but when you haven’t had that experience at the end of the day, a club is just sort of taking your word for it.”
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Four months on from being named Jets head coach, momentum and belief is building at McDonald Jones Stadium.
Under Stanton’s guidance, talented prospects Clayton Taylor and Eli Adams thrived while the likes of Lachlan Bayliss, Thomas Aquilina, Callum Timmins and captain Kosta Grozos also impressed.
Now, Milligan is trying to build on that with a new vision and way of playing. Players, young and old, are buying in to what the 80-cap Socceroo wants. It comes down to consistent messaging from the head coach and his staff, which includes Nicholas Stavroulakis and Jess Vanstrattan.
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“It’s an interesting process,” he said. “I think the best thing is it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to implement. I have a very, very strong belief in the way that I want this team to play football.
“The thing that probably makes it the hardest, or slows things down, is if I don’t have an answer when they come to me, but because this is the football that I want to play, and this is the football that I really believe in, there’s no weakness, and that’s very important across the staff as well.
“It was very important that with the staff that I did bring in, they had a good understanding and a real strong belief as well as a buy-in in what we try to achieve, first and foremost. Because if you have me out there pushing one thing… I’ll give you an example. If I’m saying, right, I want you to step forward, and I want you to be positive. And then Tommy Aquilina says to my assistant, I don’t think I can step forward there and my assistant says yeah, maybe not. Then that little bit of belief that’s not there, that little bit of cohesion has to be spot on all the times, the messaging has to be consistent.
“As soon as you start to show those little weaknesses, then I feel that’s where players, that resistance starts to build a little bit. So first and foremost, it was very important that we got our staff right. I think we’ve been fortunate enough to do that at the moment.
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“The fact the club were willing to back me on that and believe in me, it was a good early sign that they wanted to head in this direction. They weren’t just saying it’s the club they want to become. They were generally showing me that this is the direction the whole club wants to go in. So before you get to the players, that’s most important.
“We’re very consistent in terms of our messaging and the direction that we head in, and that’s why these three phases are important. Again, it’s very easy for me to say I want us to be a team that’s on the front foot, but if I don’t go and create that habit in them before we give them that tactical information, then you get disconnect.”
There have been glimpses of Newcastle’s potential in recent seasons but it has been seven years since the Jets reached the Finals Series.
Milligan and the Jets are going about trying to end that run by bolstering their squad with the arrival of Irish central defender and former Dundee FC captain Joe Shaughnessy, Aussie young gun Alex Badolato, attacker Max Burgess, goalkeeper James Delianov and Joel Bertolisio from the NPL.
It is not just the experienced players, including Japanese star Kota Mizunuma and Lachie Rose, Milligan is relying on in the Hunter region.
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Milligan is tapping into the academy program as he looks to develop from within. Oscar Fryer made his debut following a 13-month injury lay-off in the Australia Cup Round of 16, while Xavier Bertoncello, Christian Bracco, Max Cooper, Will Dobson and Alex Nunes have already had a taste of senior football.
But there are more talents emerging within the Jets’ youth space – from academy prospect Oli Cockle to Ethan Debono and Janni Rafty, the next generation are impressing under the watchful eye of Jets academy head coach Damian Zane.
It is part of grander plans in Newcastle.
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“The important thing for us is, I think it’s becoming clear that there’s a pathway for these younger players, but they need to be able to feel that as well,” Milligan explained.
“It’s not about the formation that they play or anything like that. It’s about the intent that they have in the messaging that they get, allowing them to be comfortable once they sort of jump through those ranks. It’s a big part of what (general manager of football) Nigel Boogaard is doing as well. Making sure that we have that Academy space spot on, and being an actual progression line into the first team.
“We have some other good people, very good people, ex-players that are involved in the club as well. That’s important.
“Then you saw a picture of (Alex) Nunes with Bogart the other day from when he was nine years old, that kind of thing really resonates with not only the young players coming through the club, but the fans as well.
“We have people like Jobe Wheelhouse, involved in the pre-Academy. You have Zane, Clayton (Zane) in there as well. So there’s a lot of good people around there, and we just need to make sure that we keep adding to that.
“It’s going to take time in that area as well. But we’ve really emphasised that we want to start that process as soon as possible.”
In the short term, Milligan is not putting a ceiling on what Newcastle – who have not featured in the finals since reaching the 2017-18 Isuzu UTE A-League decider – can achieve.
“I want the players to be ambitious,” he said. “I want them to be the best version of themselves.
“With this group and the attitude that they have, and the amount of growth that’s in this sort of team and in this region as well, I don’t think we should put those goals or limitations on players as well.
“We want to be a finals team, but to be a finals team, we have to be better today. We have to be better tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what sort of three weeks looks like if we don’t get it right now so that that’s that’s been the main focus that we want to compete.”
