Sympathy in coalmine ultimately phoney (4)
I believe the answer is:
pity
'sympathy' is the definition.
(I know that sympathy can be written as pity)
'coalmine ultimately phoney' is the wordplay.
'coalmine' becomes 'pit' (I've seen this before).
'ultimately' says to take the final letters.
The final letter of 'phoney' is 'y'.
'pit'+'y'='PITY'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for pity that I've seen before include "Feel sorry for" , "Ruth" , "true compassion?" , "Have sympathetic feelings toward" , "Feel sorrow for" .)