HE COULD easily have been sitting in the managerial dug-out of the home side tonight as one James Dack returns to Rodney Parade with Crawley.

Justin Edinburgh’s long-term assistant and County caretaker manager for the first half of 2015, Dack is certain to receive a warm welcome in tonight's vital clash at the bottom of League Two, and rightly so.

After all, as his been made abundantly clear by the amber army, “you’ll always back the Dack, back the Dack.”

That’s understandable acknowledgement of a job well done by Dack in almost four seasons with the club, but I can’t see how Dack is recognised as a saint and Edinburgh is thought of by many as a sinner. This just doesn’t tally for me.

It can only be football fan logic, the assistant stayed so he’s loyal, the manager left, so he’s a Judas, but that’s far too black and white when there are more than fifty shades of grey in between.

Edinburgh left for a bigger club, in a higher division, with a brighter future in the short-term (own their own ground, ambitious owner, big catchment area) and he did so after doing a phenomenal job for Newport. It’s a tale as old as time and for those who will object to the timing, don’t forget that at the end of August 2014, many were screaming for Edinburgh to be sacked. It was handled appallingly by all parties, but divorce is never a fun time for anyone involved.

And the expectation was that Dack would go too, once Gillingham came calling. So much so, that while Edinburgh was talking to Paul Scally and agreeing to take over at Priestfield, Howard Greenhaf was briefing Wayne Hatswell that he’d take over with Mike Flynn assisting him. Dack just had to wait it out.

And then Gillingham told Justin he couldn’t bring an assistant, the story was spun as being “we want to minimise the impact on Newport,” and Dack stayed put with Les Scadding overruling Greenhaf and saying he wanted Dack in charge. Though Jimmy now being at Crawley suggests a reunion with Edinburgh was never on the cards.

Dack was then offered a one-year contract to remain as manager, which he initially verbally accepted before changing his mind. In that time, several players, including former club captain Max Porter, were told they’d be retained for this season. The rest is history.

Now this isn’t meant to seem like an attack on Dack, because County owe him enormously for a good job well done, in the long-term. Four years at a football club is almost a lifetime.

But that is even truer for Edinburgh the manager that saved them from Conference relegation, got them promoted, took them to Wembley twice and engineered the move to Rodney Parade, universally acknowledged as essential to the progress of the club.

He also pioneered the resurrection of Bar Amber as a training base, a vital move in terms of protecting the legacy of a building that has true historical significance to Newport County AFC and most importantly, a key sanctum for the players.

They don’t have their own ground, they don’t have their own training facilities, but they do have a clubhouse, a place where they eat and relax together and that has made a huge difference, as we see ourselves, twice weekly at press briefings.

Just ask Edinburgh or Dack or a Mike Flynn about the 2013/14 season and how team spirit was by the end of the campaign with players slinking in and out of training, always at nomadic destinations.

It’s just another little angle where Edinburgh has improved the club. He’s a very talented manager, a fact borne out by his great early success at the Gills.

It’s great that County fans will always back the Dack, but it’s Edinburgh who fans need to judge more kindly. Perhaps in time, they will.