Jones leading the charge at the Coast

After picking up the club’s first IGA NPL NSW Mens 1 competition win last weekend the spirits are high within the Central Coast Mariners Academy and one man happy to be at the helm of a winning club is head coach and technical director Mark Jones.
Indeed, the Mariners Academy side has played some attractive football but the win has been long awaited on the north side of the Mooney Mooney as the club suffered some tough results in the first round of the season.
“Yeah a win obviously helps, it’s been a long time coming.
“We’ve done quite well in the cup and I think Blacktown have been the only team that have outplayed us this year.
“It’s just game sense and game awareness, when you’ve got the boys playing against grown men they might need to become a little more street hard, street weary or however you would like to put it, but in terms of the way we play football, not a problem,” Jones told Football NSW.
2013 is the inaugural inclusion for the Central Coast Mariners Academy in NSW’s top-flight and the idea of an academy side coming up against the state’s best; week in week out is a daunting one.
The set up on the Central Coast is built around the development of youth with the ultimate aim of funneling players through to the Hyundai A-League, which Jones is passionate to achieve.
But in the IGA NPL Mens 1 there are plenty of elite competitors that are all gunning for the title, which means the Central Coast side, must balance their goal of development with the prospect of survival.
“Development is our number one goal and obviously survival is the territory that comes with the fact that we can be relegated,” Jones said.
“We are trying to top up with a few experienced boys because I think you need a bit of experience and if you look at our line up there isn’t too much experience in there which builds well for a good youth team and representation from this team in our NYL team.
“So that’s our main goal, if I get 5 or 6 boys into our youth team than I will be extremely happy.
“Obviously we need to stay in this competition, having said that, if we were to put the same team in next year we would do fine with the players we’ve got.”
Jones’ responsibilities at the Central Coast Academy range from managing the first grade to ensuring that the club’s coaching philosophy is consistent from top to bottom.
With the qualifications of Jones there is no better man for the role who has individually coached and played in almost every level there is to experience in Australian football and a combination of overseas experience.
“As a player that’s a long time ago, I played with the likes of Graham Arnold, Robbie Slater and people like that in Sydney Croatia too many years ago and have been around quite a while, I played in national youth teams in 1985 with Ange Postecoglou,” he said. 
“I started with women’s coaching for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, ran the institute of sport for women, then took over the men, so I then became the head coach of the NSW Institute of Sport men’s program.”
From there Jones became the assistant under Gary Van Egmond at the Newcastle Jets where they won the Hyundai A-League rated as one of his biggest coaching highlights.
Jones had been groomed for the top job at Newcastle although a change of ownership saw Branko Culina stay on as the head coach.
Since then, Jones has not forgotten how close he came to becoming an A-League coach and spent some time in the Malaysian Super League with Saba and also China’s Division one with Chongqing Lifan F.C. with the current Central Coast Mariners Club Ambassador Lawrie McKinna. 
The last stop on his way back to NSW was an assistant role with Perth Glory but when an opportunity came knocking on the Central Coast to become a head coach he would not die wondering.
“I Got an offer to come back to Perth Glory as an assistant coach so went from China to Perth Glory, while I was there the opportunity came up to coach the Mariners Academy team which has allowed me to be home with my family who still live in Newcastle,” he said.
“So an opportunity to be closer to home and an opportunity to be the head coach of a team again which I haven’t done for quite a while has been great.”
There is no doubt that Jones’ role with the Central Coast Mariners Academy is close to his heart and the developments of his squad along with positive results are his main focuses.
However the futuristic football set up on the Coast also offers Jones a personal prospect of an A-League head coaching position that he aspires to achieve.
“Without a doubt this set up is the role model for the rest of the country, this is the top state league in the country, arguably with the Victorian Premier League, which are the two top leagues under the A-League.
“We would like to think that for the future, the competition needs and wants a Central Coast Mariners Academy team in it.
“Yeah I’d obviously like to be a head coach, I got within a whisker of being an A-League head coach.
“I am enjoying the opportunity to be in charge and I would love the opportunity to be in charge of an A-League team in the near future and hopefully at the Mariners,” Jones said. 
-By Tyson Scott