Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Newcastle Jets will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Daniel Wilmering 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Newcastle Jets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joel Bertolissio is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The loan was meant to give him football. 4 games and 0 goals later he is back at Newcastle Jets no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
Position 11 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Wilmering and Newcastle Jets agree another 4 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Clayton Taylor was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Chances created: 11. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Grant Holmes after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
14 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Adelaide United? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Daniel Wilmering 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.
It needed Nikos Vergos to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Melbourne Victory, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Grant Holmes was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Newcastle Jets dressing room was either.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alex Nassiep’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Newcastle Jets needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Newcastle Jets. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Clayton Taylor trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon ran through Max Burgess
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $111.2K — a club that wants Ethan Cox enough to be asked twice.
$110.0K on the table at Adelaide United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Daniel Wilmering and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Lachlan Rose falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.