Ernie's success in playing style and results in that season with Burns, and then honesty and sheer likeability while the club was being threatened with being scrubbed out of existence (seem to have forgotten that some of you yeh?) and then some promising recruitment- Kosta, Krishna and Roly running forward, Rossi at the back- Gui an unknown quantity, but possibly a goer- which hasn't fired so far this season.
I think someone made the comment somewhere- salary capped teams fall on their weakest links, rather than rise on their strongest and I think that the 'Nix have been a case study in that.
Ernie was a big draw card for players to come to New Zealand. He was a known, proven successful A-league manager with good connections. The difficulty recruiting players to Wellington isn't going to change. It may, in fact, be more difficult.