They were all so very close, Vinny Prieto, Lou Stellato, John Currie and Leroy Jones, but that quad county alliance went sideways fast in the aftermath of its endorsement of Phil Murphy for Governor, tanked when Leroy Jones broke from the group to back Craig Coughlin over Prieto for speaker, then went utterly belly up when Prieto yesterday yanked Jones from the Sports and Exposition Authority.

It was retribution on Prieto’s part.

Jones backed Coughlin for speaker.

So Prieto booted Jones from Sports and Expo, supplanting him with one Robert Dowd (chief of police in North Bergen, fiefdom central of state Senator Nick Sacco (D-32).

If it looked like the outgoing speaker going old school in a last gasp act on the eve of his exit from the lower house throne, there were party sources who insisted that Prieto did it to him himself, when he backed Nick Sacco underling Joey Muniz for a Horizon Board appointment rather than tapping Jones, to keep the opportunistic Essex County Democratic Committee Chairman from going South Jersey with the Coughlin deal.

But maybe Jones’ break was inevitable, and Prieto’s final mule kick too its inevitable spastic consequence. (Maybe its not even about payback as much as why want the guy on the board he’ll be reporting to as executive director. Maybe payback is just a fringe benefit).

Anyway, the North thought they had something with Jones-Prieto-Stellato-Currie as a counterweight to GN3. Notwithstanding Jones’ resistance to a Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) gubernatorial candidacy however, Jones – in part on the strength of his closeness to Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo (who was made, in no small part, by South Jersey, in part for other reasons – certainly always appeared predisposed to getting in on the Coughlin for Sweeny legislative power play.

After hitting the yes button for Murphy – in part to block Sweeney – Jones reverted back to Norcross-friendly party establishment member with his thumbs up ruling on making Assemblyman Craig Coughlin (D-19) speaker in exchange for handing the upper chamber keys of the kingdom back to a  thoroughly heartbroken but still senate leadership- worthy Sweeney – and of course, dumping Prieto.

As part of the deal, Jones got the budget chairmanship for county worker Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin (D-29); while maintaining enough goodwill in Murphy world on the strength of his initial endorsement to muscle an LG pick from the governor-elect (and, simultaneously, a frontline ally as commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs).

A Horizon Board appointment to maintain relations with a guy who was DOA in the still-powerful South, or the needle thread with Murphy World clout and a gentle pivot back to the South (and Middlesex – the 2017 version of Hudson [2013] and Essex [2009])?

Jones opted for the latter.

And Prieto, once himself a Southern chummy player turned roadkill in the machinations of South Jersey politics, chose his last punishing act for Jones as payback; the Sports and Expo eject button, hardly an Ernest Stavro Blofeld evil genius maneuver but enough, arguably, to let the political universe know Prieto hadn’t forgotten how the game is played.

If Sweeney could jolt Currie with the clerkship denial, Prieto could administer the buzz handshake to Jones on his way out the door to – where else – Sports and Expo.

Even as that was happening, Sweeny/Norcross ally state Senator Brian P. Stack was making preparations to relieve Prieto from the chairmanship of the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) sooner rather than later. For Jones, it minimized the discomfort of having to pretend there was anything left of a quad county alliance that once appeared at the verge of creating a post South Jersey universe.