Jets stuck on the tarmac

When the Newcastle Jets walked onto Hunter Stadium on Sunday afternoon there was an element of excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation in the air. And rightly so. The club was closing in on their target of 11,000 members – something which appeared extremely unlikely when owner Nathan Tinkler wanted to hand back his A-League license in March. Luckily for the people of the Hunter, an emergency meeting with Frank Lowy in a Brisbane Airport hangar with Mr Tinkler sorted out the issues and the license was back on the table.

Fast forward to October and the Jets had signed some of the best young talent in the country as coach Gary van Egmond looked to play a style not too dissimilar to back-to-back champions Brisbane Roar. Little known players to many such as Craig Goodwin, James Brown, Adam Taggart, Mark Birighitti, Josh Mitchell and Scott Neville were part of the squad after favourites such as Elrich, Wehrmann and Topor-Stanley et al were shown the door.

Make no mistake, the performance from the Jets was disappointing and most of the 14,868-strong crowd had every right to expect a better performance than the 2-0 loss. But there’s a difference between expecting something better and becoming negative after one poor performance. Some things said on social media after the game was rather disappointing. People need to be aware that it’s a long season and there’s still plenty of time to make up supposed lost ground.

Van Egmond conceded after the game “we probably needed to create more clear cut opportunities but the control of the game was by ourselves.” Marquee man Emile Heskey will be better for the run along with his teammates and van Egmond said he was happy with how his target man went after arriving in the country 10 days prior to the game. “Emile wanted to stay out there for 95 minutes but we have to be a little bit careful with him and we probably went a little bit over with him today. I was looking at only giving him half a game but he’s got such a willingness to play and get out there and to try and contribute,” he said.

Maybe some of the fans need to contribute for the remainder of the season rather than jumping out at the first sign of slight turbulence.

Paul Jobber