Elliot Jones enjoying his role as assistant coach with Albury United

During his time as Murray United's head coach, Jones was assisted by Matt Campbell, who's now in charge of the Greens.

Jones is back on the touchline this season as one of Campbell's assistants and with Dave Smith also on board, it's an unrivalled trio across the Albury-Wodonga Football Association.

United lost 3-0 to Boomers in the FA Cup final on Saturday but Jones is pleased to be back in clubland.

"It's been great," he said.

"A lot of the guys I had a bit to do with at Murray and I'm enjoying it because I'm just helping out Matty and Dave this time around.

"It's probably a little less stressful although Saturday night certainly brought back some memories.

"I'm very much an assistant coach.

'Camo' is steering the ship and I'm just helping out, that's the way we'll run it.

"But I really enjoy training and game days.

"As much as Saturday didn't go our way, it was great to get back into it and I really enjoyed it.

"In terms of pressure, everybody has pressure but the head coach just has a lot more phone calls and emails to deal with.

"That's probably where it's been a little bit less stressful."

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United fielded new signings Jay Barker, Alex Howard, Ben Smith and Jordan Hore in the cup final at La Trobe, with Ryan Luty named on the bench, and many have them pencilled in as the team to beat this season.

"With the recruits we've got and the team we've got, I think we deserve to be up there in terms of favouritism," Jones said.

"But that's for everybody else to talk about. Based on Saturday night, you'd have to put Boomers there too.

"We've got a good team on paper but you don't win games on paper so we've got a bit of work to do.

"We know we can play a lot better than we did and we know our best football will be more than competitive.

"We're really looking forward to round one."

Albury United start their season away to Wangaratta on March 13 before playing Twin City in the first round of the FA Cup three days later.

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