Newcastle v Melbourne City: Ernie Merrick preaching calm to Jets

Ernie Merrick knows a thing or two about how to cope with the pressure of finals football.

Newcastle Jets coach Ernie Merrick. Picture: AAP

As a two-time championship-winning coach and the only man to have taken three different clubs to the A-League playoffs, Ernie Merrick knows a thing or two about how to cope with the pressure of finals football.

It is why you couldn’t find him more at ease with himself and his team ahead of the Newcastle Jets’ grand final qualifier against Melbourne City at McDonald Jones Stadium tonight.

Coffee cup in hand, smiling and cracking jokes, the 65-year-old Scotsman could not have been more relaxed during his pre-match press conference yesterday as his players could be heard laughing while they went through their training warm-up.

There’s a feel and a sense of confidence around Newcastle that Merrick fully understands. He has seen it before around this time during his previous stints with Melbourne Victory and Wellington Phoenix.

“There is always a point of difference between clubs at this time of the season,” Merrick said. “You get a different feel in certain areas, but the attitude is always the same for me.

“Any finals team that I have coached that have that sort of attitude in the preparation — taking the game to the opposition team — they are the sort of teams that will achieve something.

“There’s the positive feeling you get from a team that has a mindset that they are going to stay focused and they are going to get a job done and they are going to work really hard for the whole 95 minutes.

“At the Jets, we have tried to develop a team that has scored a lot of goals, so if you have a team that has scored 57 goals in a season then you know that given the opportunity we will score goals.

“Defence is very, very important but you don’t win a game on defence, that is just your launching pad.”

Merrick said he has not had time to reflect on his achievement of having taken Victory, Phoenix and now the Jets to the playoffs. Instead, he prefers to look forward, to keep learning and trying to find an edge.

It is why he had former Australia, NSW State of Origin and Newcastle Knights rugby league legend Kurt Gidley address the players yesterday morning.

“You are always trying to improve yourself and we had Kurt Gidley talk to the boys this morning and he gave them some really good pointers along the lines ... the sort of stuff I like the boys to be focused on,” Merrick said.

“Someone like him bringing up something else ... you go ‘ah, that’s a good point for finals football’. He was on about focusing on simple things individually, about sticking with Plan A and not going to Plan Z all of a sudden because you are down a goal.

“If I reflect on the past it is in the hope that the future will get better. I am very confident in the squad we have.”

For his part, Merrick said he has stressed to the players to continue to work hard at training but also wants them to enjoy the occasion tonight.

“We have a good mix of youth and experience and they are handling it in different ways as you would expect,” he said. “They are now playing a semi-final here in front of their home crowd and it’s very important we stick to what has got us here and play to the game plan.

“I don’t want the players to be thinking they can do miraculous things. There is excitement there but the boys are really grounded and we are just focused on this game and not the outcome.”

Meanwhile, Merrick remained coy about the prospect of captain Nigel Boogaard starting tonight. The experienced defender played a major role in the Jets finishing second in the regular season and qualifying for their first finals since 2010.

Boogaard has been sidelined since early last month after breaking a bone in his knee but has made a remarkable recovery. Merrick said he “would be 100 per cent if I needed him”. But whether he is prepared to risk him in from the start in such a big game remains to be seen.

“I feel confident Nigel and Ronny (Vargas), if we needed them for the whole game, would do it. If we need them for part of the game they would do it, too,” he said. “So I haven’t placed any restrictions on who can play what and how long for.

“It’s a semi-final, so whoever I put on there will be on for the whole game. I’m not even worried about saying, I can only given him 30 minutes or him 45 minutes. It’s finals.”