Newcastle Jets’ Gary Van Egmond’s remarkable rise up the A-League coaching ranks culminated recently after being recognised with FourFourTwo’s Coach of the Year Award.
Congratulations on a great season. Is it nice to win awards?
It’s always nice to get some recognition for what you do but you’re just a piece of the jigsaw puzzle if you like. You’re ably supported by staff and players and by people who work in the club but it’s always nice for you to get recognition.
It was a fairytale season in many ways… but tinged with some disappointment?
Yes, but we’ll definitely take the positives from it simply because we are stronger mentally from it. When we get ourselves in those situations in future seasons it will obviously put us in good stead.
One other thing is that it will give people a lot more motivation once we begin the pre-season for next year… it will give the guys real motivation. I think you could see that from Adelaide this year who really gained a lot of motivation from how they finished last year. They won the league quite easily but didn’t make the Grand Final which would have been most disappointing for them. They’ve drawn on it and we’ll definitely draw on it in the year coming up.
If you don’t finish first or second it’s a very hard ask to get yourselves to the Grand Final. You’re playing against two quality teams and with the salary cap it evens out the competition to a degree - not to say that people don’t buy and sell better than others - but if you don’t finish first or second and have to play away from home twice in front of packed stadiums… it’s a difficult ask and we’ll definitely be trying our best to make sure we get in the top two.
What do you say to the boys after a defeat like that (against Adelaide in the Preliminary Final)?
I think you’ve got to point out the positives and I think it’s imperative to get them to understand how close they were. They were very, very close and it’s a game of inches sometimes. It’s just the few things that you have to dot and cross, that you might not have done… you know you’ve just got to not leave anything to chance. We’ll definitely remind ourselves of the hurt when we get into certain areas. It’s definitely one where you will have regrets but for most of them they can still put that behind them and win the ultimate chance. For some, they may not get that chance again.
Back to coming on board as the boss, what did you see as the main thing that you needed to address?
I think it is something that you look at and you think well, ‘there are a number of things I think I can attack but what’s most important?’ And what was most important to me was that we’d conceded 16 goals in seven games. For me that was just suicide so we needed to come up with a system if you like, or a style of play where we could utilise the squad that we had to the best abilities that they had. We set about that and what you’ve got to try and do is win the players over as well so that they believe in what we are trying to do. Then, the first three games we won so what it did was have a lot of faith in the way we were trying to play and secondly, was that it got us in the mix and got us close to the top four quite quickly. And once we got a sniff things started to snowball.
You did it with a group of players that Nick had before…
There were a few positional changes. Thommo for me is a good player who had a lot of good attributes from the physical and the technical side and I felt he could play the game a little bit better with the game in front of him rather than receiving the ball with his back to goal which is what he was doing in midfield. He made some really good runs in midfield, and was a quick player. For me, I felt we needed a fullback, left back and as far as midfielders were concerned we had the likes of Stuey in there who could dictate play and play us out of there, and we had Nicky Carle in there who could create as far as the final third is concerned. We needed another person who would really work and put his foot in and we had Paul Kohler came in and did a good job of it. He was a major part of our season.
It was somewhat a case of getting the guys to play to their strengths…
Very much so. We played probably two systems this year. We played a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-2-1-3 depending on how you want to look at it and we played a 4-4-2 with a diamond sort of shape in the middle of the park so each way I felt was good. The one thing I don’t mind tampering with is the midfield and the strike force, but as far as the defence went I think you’ll find we always played with a four. I’m not a big fan of the three unless we’re really chasing the game and we’re looking to go route one and we’re just trying to pick up the second ball ala Wimbledon but I just think the four covers you a lot better at the back. Especially when you’re really promoting the fullbacks to get forward and in that respect you’ll have three at the back so you’re nice and strong; but I think that the shape that we adopted really suited the team and we’ll take that into next year with so much more understanding of what we’ve been doing this year. We can really build on it this year.
You’ve mentioned your boy’s fitness before. Is that something that you worked on when you took over?
We had a fairly solid pre-season but sometimes the boys don’t realise how much fitness work they’ve had when we’re playing possession games and what have you. I’m not one to run them a great deal without the ball. A lot of work can be done with the ball but pre-season is a balance you have to have. Once you get into the season proper you have to concentrate a little bit more on speed and these sorts of things and other training techniques that you have to explore. A lot of your fitness work comes from possession and small-sided games.
How much did the crowd become a factor?
It did a lot. It was good to see that no matter what you do in life you put hard work in and you get re-paid no matter which way you look at it. You get recognition, monetary or for us in this situation, we got crowds. We weren't always getting results but we were playing decent football along the way. Coupled with the fact that we were very active in school promotional visits, shopping centre visits and the like you’re quite fortunate to be in a torn situation. Newcastle is a city but it is more of a town situation because everything is quite accessible. I mean you’re 15 minutes from anything and for the players it was great. They got to see a lot of people and we connected really well with the public. When we had the send-off here at the Civic Centre and again when we came home you actually have people who come and support and who we now actually know their names. So it’s really quite personal and I don’t know if that could actually happen in a larger city, if you like.
Was there any point in the season and you thought, ‘hold on a second, we can do this. We can make the Finals.’?
I think to use an old cliché, it was one game at a time. When we won three on the belt early on and we won away against Queensland one-nil and then the game against Adelaide 2-1 when we went down to ten men and then Nicky scored that fantastic goal you start to think that someone must be smiling on you. There were a couple of times when we didn’t take our opportunities as far as getting a result but what was good was that the team was getting stronger mentally all the time. I really believe it’s that mental toughness that is the difference between having a really good season and not having a good season.
For you, you’ve had quite a long kind of apprenticeship. Have you taken on any one person’s style or is it more a conglomeration of a number of styles and ideas?
I think it’s more a conglomeration. Two really stand out in Arnie and Ian Crook. I’m in contact with them quite regularly as well. I think in the style of football that you like to play as well, knowing the cattle that you’ve got to utlisie. I watch a lot of football on the TV and now we have ESPN and Fox and what have you and you see all the best players week in, week out and you get to see how they play with the different camera angles you can see what they do. I think last year both Chelsea and Arsenal played some extremely good football. I’m a diehard Liverpool supporter but I really appreciate the way that Arsenal plays. They’ve been likened to PlayStation, it’s just magnificent how they play. The system that they’ve adopted has them playing very much like the French national team in years gone by and I thought they have a very attractive way of playing. We set up the same way because I thought we had similar players with attributes that would lend themselves to making it work. As a player as well – you think back to how you’ve been coached. You think back to when you’ve had disastrous seasons and how you were treated as players and the information they gave you. Sometimes as a player you don’t realise until you step back and have a good look at it. It’s good with all the different coverages that come out and information is very accessible.
You seem to be quite a modern coach. How important is scouting the other team and their weaknesses and strengths?
We do that. Mark who I was allowed to bring in – we don’t have a strength and conditioning coach as such – but has a very strong background in strength and conditioning as well also has a coaching background in his own right as well. He’s been working with the AIS program for many years and was involved in the boy’s program and before that the women’s program. We have a strong contingency in Newcastle of Matildas, Young Matildas from U-17 Matildas who have been doing very well under his guidance and he’s come in and is quite good with the computer stuff in relation to video analysis and sports tech program where we can analyse our performance and the team that we’re playing down to how many times did this person touch it and in what third... That’s probably the most time-consuming part of the week but it’s all about preparing properly and getting the little things right. Just little things we can pick up on to give the players as much information – not to overload them – but on the basis of what we feel is important and to the point.
What will you look back on most fondly from this season?
Walking out as the head coach against New Zealand was a moment I will remember quite distinctly. And then the next one would be playing Sydney on New Year’s Day when we broke the ground record. That for me was another point, seeing the support and on a day which is not seen synonomously as a day for crowds to turn out. And obviously the home game against Sydney was phenomenal for me. To have the crowd at capacity and to win the night was great.
Next season, where will the improvements be made?
I think you’re buying and selling is very important as the manager where you really earn your dollars. Many coaches can put sessions on about how to play but if you don’t have the talent you’re not going to achieve it. Your hiring and firing has to be spot on. You’ve got your jigsaw puzzle in your head and you’ve hopefully got the pieces around it to fit it. That for me is extremely important.
To find out who else scooped a coveted FourFourTwo award, make sure you pick up the April 2007 issue on sale 7 March.
It’s always nice to get some recognition for what you do but you’re just a piece of the jigsaw puzzle if you like. You’re ably supported by staff and players and by people who work in the club but it’s always nice for you to get recognition.
It was a fairytale season in many ways… but tinged with some disappointment?
Yes, but we’ll definitely take the positives from it simply because we are stronger mentally from it. When we get ourselves in those situations in future seasons it will obviously put us in good stead.
One other thing is that it will give people a lot more motivation once we begin the pre-season for next year… it will give the guys real motivation. I think you could see that from Adelaide this year who really gained a lot of motivation from how they finished last year. They won the league quite easily but didn’t make the Grand Final which would have been most disappointing for them. They’ve drawn on it and we’ll definitely draw on it in the year coming up.
If you don’t finish first or second it’s a very hard ask to get yourselves to the Grand Final. You’re playing against two quality teams and with the salary cap it evens out the competition to a degree - not to say that people don’t buy and sell better than others - but if you don’t finish first or second and have to play away from home twice in front of packed stadiums… it’s a difficult ask and we’ll definitely be trying our best to make sure we get in the top two.
What do you say to the boys after a defeat like that (against Adelaide in the Preliminary Final)?
I think you’ve got to point out the positives and I think it’s imperative to get them to understand how close they were. They were very, very close and it’s a game of inches sometimes. It’s just the few things that you have to dot and cross, that you might not have done… you know you’ve just got to not leave anything to chance. We’ll definitely remind ourselves of the hurt when we get into certain areas. It’s definitely one where you will have regrets but for most of them they can still put that behind them and win the ultimate chance. For some, they may not get that chance again.
Back to coming on board as the boss, what did you see as the main thing that you needed to address?
I think it is something that you look at and you think well, ‘there are a number of things I think I can attack but what’s most important?’ And what was most important to me was that we’d conceded 16 goals in seven games. For me that was just suicide so we needed to come up with a system if you like, or a style of play where we could utilise the squad that we had to the best abilities that they had. We set about that and what you’ve got to try and do is win the players over as well so that they believe in what we are trying to do. Then, the first three games we won so what it did was have a lot of faith in the way we were trying to play and secondly, was that it got us in the mix and got us close to the top four quite quickly. And once we got a sniff things started to snowball.
You did it with a group of players that Nick had before…
There were a few positional changes. Thommo for me is a good player who had a lot of good attributes from the physical and the technical side and I felt he could play the game a little bit better with the game in front of him rather than receiving the ball with his back to goal which is what he was doing in midfield. He made some really good runs in midfield, and was a quick player. For me, I felt we needed a fullback, left back and as far as midfielders were concerned we had the likes of Stuey in there who could dictate play and play us out of there, and we had Nicky Carle in there who could create as far as the final third is concerned. We needed another person who would really work and put his foot in and we had Paul Kohler came in and did a good job of it. He was a major part of our season.
It was somewhat a case of getting the guys to play to their strengths…
Very much so. We played probably two systems this year. We played a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-2-1-3 depending on how you want to look at it and we played a 4-4-2 with a diamond sort of shape in the middle of the park so each way I felt was good. The one thing I don’t mind tampering with is the midfield and the strike force, but as far as the defence went I think you’ll find we always played with a four. I’m not a big fan of the three unless we’re really chasing the game and we’re looking to go route one and we’re just trying to pick up the second ball ala Wimbledon but I just think the four covers you a lot better at the back. Especially when you’re really promoting the fullbacks to get forward and in that respect you’ll have three at the back so you’re nice and strong; but I think that the shape that we adopted really suited the team and we’ll take that into next year with so much more understanding of what we’ve been doing this year. We can really build on it this year.
You’ve mentioned your boy’s fitness before. Is that something that you worked on when you took over?
We had a fairly solid pre-season but sometimes the boys don’t realise how much fitness work they’ve had when we’re playing possession games and what have you. I’m not one to run them a great deal without the ball. A lot of work can be done with the ball but pre-season is a balance you have to have. Once you get into the season proper you have to concentrate a little bit more on speed and these sorts of things and other training techniques that you have to explore. A lot of your fitness work comes from possession and small-sided games.
How much did the crowd become a factor?
It did a lot. It was good to see that no matter what you do in life you put hard work in and you get re-paid no matter which way you look at it. You get recognition, monetary or for us in this situation, we got crowds. We weren't always getting results but we were playing decent football along the way. Coupled with the fact that we were very active in school promotional visits, shopping centre visits and the like you’re quite fortunate to be in a torn situation. Newcastle is a city but it is more of a town situation because everything is quite accessible. I mean you’re 15 minutes from anything and for the players it was great. They got to see a lot of people and we connected really well with the public. When we had the send-off here at the Civic Centre and again when we came home you actually have people who come and support and who we now actually know their names. So it’s really quite personal and I don’t know if that could actually happen in a larger city, if you like.
Was there any point in the season and you thought, ‘hold on a second, we can do this. We can make the Finals.’?
I think to use an old cliché, it was one game at a time. When we won three on the belt early on and we won away against Queensland one-nil and then the game against Adelaide 2-1 when we went down to ten men and then Nicky scored that fantastic goal you start to think that someone must be smiling on you. There were a couple of times when we didn’t take our opportunities as far as getting a result but what was good was that the team was getting stronger mentally all the time. I really believe it’s that mental toughness that is the difference between having a really good season and not having a good season.
For you, you’ve had quite a long kind of apprenticeship. Have you taken on any one person’s style or is it more a conglomeration of a number of styles and ideas?
I think it’s more a conglomeration. Two really stand out in Arnie and Ian Crook. I’m in contact with them quite regularly as well. I think in the style of football that you like to play as well, knowing the cattle that you’ve got to utlisie. I watch a lot of football on the TV and now we have ESPN and Fox and what have you and you see all the best players week in, week out and you get to see how they play with the different camera angles you can see what they do. I think last year both Chelsea and Arsenal played some extremely good football. I’m a diehard Liverpool supporter but I really appreciate the way that Arsenal plays. They’ve been likened to PlayStation, it’s just magnificent how they play. The system that they’ve adopted has them playing very much like the French national team in years gone by and I thought they have a very attractive way of playing. We set up the same way because I thought we had similar players with attributes that would lend themselves to making it work. As a player as well – you think back to how you’ve been coached. You think back to when you’ve had disastrous seasons and how you were treated as players and the information they gave you. Sometimes as a player you don’t realise until you step back and have a good look at it. It’s good with all the different coverages that come out and information is very accessible.
You seem to be quite a modern coach. How important is scouting the other team and their weaknesses and strengths?
We do that. Mark who I was allowed to bring in – we don’t have a strength and conditioning coach as such – but has a very strong background in strength and conditioning as well also has a coaching background in his own right as well. He’s been working with the AIS program for many years and was involved in the boy’s program and before that the women’s program. We have a strong contingency in Newcastle of Matildas, Young Matildas from U-17 Matildas who have been doing very well under his guidance and he’s come in and is quite good with the computer stuff in relation to video analysis and sports tech program where we can analyse our performance and the team that we’re playing down to how many times did this person touch it and in what third... That’s probably the most time-consuming part of the week but it’s all about preparing properly and getting the little things right. Just little things we can pick up on to give the players as much information – not to overload them – but on the basis of what we feel is important and to the point.
What will you look back on most fondly from this season?
Walking out as the head coach against New Zealand was a moment I will remember quite distinctly. And then the next one would be playing Sydney on New Year’s Day when we broke the ground record. That for me was another point, seeing the support and on a day which is not seen synonomously as a day for crowds to turn out. And obviously the home game against Sydney was phenomenal for me. To have the crowd at capacity and to win the night was great.
Next season, where will the improvements be made?
I think you’re buying and selling is very important as the manager where you really earn your dollars. Many coaches can put sessions on about how to play but if you don’t have the talent you’re not going to achieve it. Your hiring and firing has to be spot on. You’ve got your jigsaw puzzle in your head and you’ve hopefully got the pieces around it to fit it. That for me is extremely important.
To find out who else scooped a coveted FourFourTwo award, make sure you pick up the April 2007 issue on sale 7 March.
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