Newcastle Jets boss Mark Milligan has outlined the key reason he behind the clubs historic Premiership winning season.
Friday night’s 2-2 draw against Melbourne Victory coupled with Auckland FC’s shock home defeat to the Mariners ensured the Jet secured their first ever Isuzu UTE A-League Premiers Plate.
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Having already captured the 2025 Australia Cup title, Milligan’s side have now added a second piece of silverware to the trophy cabinet in what is proving to be an incredible debut coaching season for Milligan and his staff.
Their Premiership triumph means the Jets are now competing to become the first ever side to win the Australia Cup, Premiership and Championship in the same season.
The former Socceroo and A-Leagues legend was a guest on this week’s edition of Total A-Leagues and outlined the key moment he believes everything clicked into place for his side.
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“For a long time, since I wanted to be a Head Coach, I’ve had a pretty specific way that I thought, especially in Australia, the game would be successful,” said Milligan when speaking with Vince Rugari, Tommy Oar and Daniel McBreen.
Check out the full interview with Mark Milligan below!
“A way of playing I thought would be successful. Once I started speaking to the Jets obviously I then started to look closer at the personnel that were going to be staying.
“Obviously we moved on quite a few players at the start of the year as well and it was important at that time that even though we released nine or 10 players, that that was the start of the transformation for me.
“I brought in four players ultimately. The rest were filled by us spending time watching the youth team, watching young boys play.
“But in terms of the actual playing style, once I saw the squad and the ones that were going to be staying, players like Wilma (Daniel Wilmering) and at the time Thomas Aquilina at the start of the year.
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“Yes I have a way of playing, but it wasn’t to be dismissive of the players and not give them the opportunity to show me that they’re able to do it, and not give them the opportunity to become better players to fit into what I want to do as well.
“That takes time and there were a lot of questions sort of asked along the way, because even though we had a good cup run when that, when those sort of tough results happen early on in the season.
“There’s definitely questions there around the way that we’re doing things, the football that we’re playing, whether it suits the players that we have.
“I have such a strong belief in how I think football should look like in Australia, and how I think it should be played, in terms of not just being successful, but being entertaining as well, that I was able to sort of stick to that.
“When the players sort of understood that that wasn’t shifting, and that’s when we really started to see their development and their buy in and their ownership of the football.”
