Football: Jets-set Merrick example to Nix

Maybe Ernie Merrick can still inspire the Phoenix. Photo / Getty Images

When Ernie Merrick left the Wellington Phoenix in December 2015, we knew we had seen the last of the Frowning Scot as a top-flight manager.

After 3-years in Wellington trying to get a serially beleaguered team to tap dance through a footballing minefield, surely the then 64-year-old would be next found in a retirement village curled up in the foetal position muttering "Just kick it to wee Barbarouses!" over and over.

Instead, on his return to Australia, Merrick took the vacant Newcastle Jets coaching job and, inside 12 months, had led them to the A-League grand final in Newcastle tonight — the one the Nix were supposed to play. One day.

Consequently, Merrick is now being mentioned in the same breath as Sir Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness in the realms of great McManagers. If not for his coaching accomplishments, for watching his star striker score the goal of the season in a sudden death final yet looking like his dog had just been put down.

Merrick making the Jets take off after failing (for all but one season) to have the Phoenix rise will only further bemuse those Kiwi football fans not fully convinced the A in A-League really does stand for Australasia.

But it would be churlish to ignore Merrick's achievement and dwell on the Phoenix's continued struggles. As churlish as it might be, for example, to dwell on the fate of Waratahs star Nick Phipps who was stripped of the captaincy and fined $4000 for urinating on a Sydney bar during his stag night while reportedly "dressed as a cow".

Something that merely underlined the point made in this space last week. Australian rugby is now — sorry — udderly ridiculous.

Instead, let's contemplate an A-League grand final that comes after a weekend in which the otherwise beleaguered competition demonstrated it had more life than seemed apparent during a season when attendances and viewing figures dropped like cartoon anvils.

The reasons for the A-League's decline have been manifold. Lack of visibility due to a poor free-to-air TV deal, the disillusionment of fans who feel persecuted for their allegedly unruly behaviour, poor promotion and on it goes.

The byzantine politics of Australian football have not helped. With Football Federation Australia and the locally based A-League clubs wrestling for control of the competition, Fifa threatened to install a "normalisation committee"; which sounds disconcertingly like the sort of thing old communist bloc countries used to do after a student riot.

Meanwhile not even the impending participation of the Socceroos in the World Cup had done much to lift the gloom after the abrupt departure of coach Ange Postecoglou, who was pilloried by the local socceratti for attempting to have his team play too attractively. This heinous footballing crime left his sub-strength outfit floundering so badly all it could do was win the Asian Cup and qualify for the World Cup.

It was against this unpromising backdrop that the A-League unexpectedly sprung to life last weekend producing the most eventful round of finals in the competition's 14 year history.

First Newcastle's Riley McGree scored an incredible scorpion goal that gained more social media views than a Kardashian booty shot. (Apparently, it's called a scorpion because it entails flicking the ball from behind your body with the bottom of the boot, not eating your young.)

Then Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory played out an extra time epic during which Terry Antonis scored both the heartbreaking own goal to level the scores with 10 seconds left, and the redeeming winner in extra time. Antonis' second goal prompted two Melbourne assistant coaches to run on to the field and accost a Sydney FC player, an act that could not have been any more absurd if they had been dressed as cows.

So Newcastle hosts Melbourne Victory in the grand final. Or, in New Zealand terms, Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick attempts to gain revenge on the Melbourne Victory who sacked him in 2011 after he had guided them to two championships.

There are a few other grand final storylines that won't cause Phoenix fans to chew their fingernails to their wrists in frustration.

The prolific Victory striker Besart Berisha was written off by some during a season in which the 10 club veteran's manic desire could not disguise the miles on his clock. Yet the combative Albanian is a factor again and threatening to produce a grand valedictory performance.

Newcastle's sudden rise from the bottom of the table after the false promises made by former owner Nathan Tinkler, a now failed mining magnate, is a romantic tale as the roars at their sold out home ground will attest.

The Jets' revival might even prove inspirational for the Phoenix after yet another season near the foot of the table. Perhaps they should take a look at the coach?

Richard Hinds is a leading Australian sports commentator.