Marked for Storm Roux
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Jesse Hamilton has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Central Coast Mariners can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad6 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Central Coast Mariners this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Sep 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Central Coast Mariners know it.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Jun 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Central Coast Mariners can pretend not to have heard.
Market14 Jun 2027
The bid was some way short and Central Coast Mariners did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad14 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Central Coast Mariners this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Apr 2027
Position 12, 18 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Trent Sainsbury was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Storm Roux knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Storm Roux trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Apr 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad19 Apr 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Trent Sainsbury was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match1 Mar 2027
14 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad1 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Central Coast Mariners this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
A performance of 8.86 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match27 Feb 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Reno Piscopo. 1‑0 against Melbourne Victory, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Storm Roux, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Oliver Lavale will call it something else in private.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
A defender's afternoon for Bradley Tapp
Defensive actions: 14. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Dec 2026
The run now stands at 11, and the questions being asked around Central Coast Mariners are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Trent Sainsbury was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match26 Dec 2026
Macarthur FC left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Bradley Tapp
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match25 Nov 2026
1‑1 against Newcastle Jets, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match28 Nov 2026
0‑3 to Wellington Phoenix, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Match28 Nov 2026
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Central Coast Mariners has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Trent Sainsbury was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Marked 8.36 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lucas Mauragis, and the manager let it.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
39 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Trent Sainsbury was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
The bid was some way short and Central Coast Mariners did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market7 Sep 2026
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ali Auglah reports back to Central Coast Mariners with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The captaincy goes to Kaito Taniguchi. It is not a job that wins matches, but a dressing room always notices who is given it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
As if he never left: Lachlan Wales returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Lachlan Wales is a Central Coast Mariners player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Central Coast Mariners this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.