New coach Mark Jackson says a weight is off his shoulders after Central Coast beat fierce rivals Newcastle 3-1 to end a four-game losing streak and kickstart their A-League Men championship defence.
Veteran defender Storm Roux opened the scoring three minutes into first-half stoppage time and Will Wilson added a second in the 57th minute at Central Coast Stadium on Saturday.
Jets youngster Archie Goodwin made for a nervous finish when he netted in the 76th but Jing Reec iced the game in the dying minutes.
It gave Jackson, who replaced Nick Montgomery after the championship-winning coach departed for Hibernian, his first ALM win.
"It feels very good, obviously," Jackson told reporters.
"It's kind of a weight off my shoulders - not the players', because we try to take that off the players and we see every day how they work hard and what they're trying to implement every day.
"Today we saw a lot of elements of how we want to play."
Jackson had earlier hailed his players' unity despite their losing run.
"The players were excellent, particularly in the first half and they showed a real togetherness," he told Paramount Plus.
"That's what we see. Sometimes results mask what people think and sometimes if you get wins, it can hide things and if you get losses, people look at the doom and gloom of things.
"But we've seen lots of positives in the games we've not won in and we see that playing out on the training field and today we've got our rewards."
The Mariners (1-0-4) hauled themselves off the bottom of the table, leapfrogging Western United on goal difference, while Newcastle (1-2-2) sit seventh.
Central Coast broke through when Jacob Farrell whipped a ball over the Jets' defence and it dipped into the path of Roux, who coolly volleyed home.
The Mariners doubled their lead when Max Balard burst through midfield and worked the ball out wide to Wilson, whose fizzing shot beat Scott inside the near post.
Goodwin, 19, brought the game to life when he latched onto a Phillip Cancar long ball, headed the ball past goalkeeper Danny Vukovic then put it away.
But after Trent Buhagiar missed a chance to equalise in the 82nd minute, 11 minutes later, Reec drove home a powerful sealer, celebrating with a backflip.
"It was a bit disappointing first half to be honest," Jets coach Rob Stanton said.
"That's probably an area I got wrong, that week we pushed them pretty hard. That's probably on me, less so the players.
"To the boys' credit, they came back in the second half, they showed a little bit more intent and what we want to be about, but obviously the first half really hurt us.
"Probably a fair result, to be honest, we didn't do enough to win the game."
