Ash Taylor is going backwards at the Gold Coast — and the club has a responsibility to support their young halfback
THE Gold Coast Titans gambled $3 million on making Ash Taylor their centrepiece. Now the 23-year-old playmaker is struggling and the club has a responsibility to do something about it, writes PETER BADEL.
Opinion
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ASH Taylor needs help. The Titans halfback should spend the impending off-season undertaking a serious appraisal of where he is going in the NRL and the type of player he wants to be.
Taylor’s showdown with Daly Cherry-Evans this week is as poetic as it is powerful because when the Manly halfback sensationally reneged on the Titans in 2015, Gold Coast’s frantic Plan B was signing Taylor.
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Now the pair cross paths at Brookvale on Friday charting fluctuating development curves.
While Cherry-Evans has rocketed back into the State of Origin frame following his outstanding comeback to the Maroons No.7 jumper in Origin III, Taylor has stagnated and is drifting further away from a Queensland baptism.
In pre-season, Titans coach Garth Brennan challenged Taylor to take ownership of the team this season.
Taylor has failed.
And, so too, have the Titans by expecting too much too soon from an inexperienced 23-year-old playmaker who was given big bucks well before his time and is now burdened by the pressure of a hefty NRL price tag.
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When Taylor signed a $3 million deal with the Titans last year, the kid from Toowoomba didn’t understand, nor deserve, the unspoken expectation attached to his rich Gold Coast contract.
The NRL’s money men must deliver titles. Simple as that. Taylor is now expected to do for the Gold Coast what Johnathan Thurston has for the Cowboys and Cooper Cronk has for the Storm.
The key distinction lies in age, experience and the capacity to manage internal and external expectations.
Taylor isn’t ready for such demands. He won’t be for some time.
Cronk is now lauded as a playmaking champion but it wasn’t until he turned 26, and had played 140 NRL games, that the former Storm ace made his State of Origin debut.
Thurston was a rookie passenger riding the coat-tails of senior Canterbury players when he won a premiership with the Bulldogs in 2004. It wasn’t until the age of 32, having played 268 first-grade games, that Thurston could say he steered a team to a premiership, engineering the Cowboys’ 2015 fairytale against the Broncos.
Ash Taylor has just turned 23. His clash with Cherry-Evans this week will represent his 68th first-grade game. As a developing playmaker, there are still critical gaps in his game, specifically his defensive reads, his error-rate and his offensive option-taking servicing his outside men.
But, eventually, Taylor’s natural talent means he will have to justify his salary and begin walking the walk.
The Titans must help Taylor on two fronts.
The first relates to his private life. It is not my place to explicitly detail Taylor’s lack of off-field professionalism, but Titans bosses are surely aware of it and must address it as a matter of urgency.
Taylor also needs a playmaking mentor to help him grow.
NRL Immortal Andrew Johns is constantly in demand with Sydney clubs looking to his pearls of wisdom to educate the next generation of playmakers.
Scott Prince, the Titans’ foundation halfback, lives on the Gold Coast.
He won a premiership with the Wests Tigers in 2005 and represented Queensland and Australia. Critically, he, like Taylor, is indigenous, giving him the ability to connect with the Titans young gun and detail his own turbulent, injury-riddled journey to a premiership ring.
Titans coach Brennan has every reason to expect Taylor to turn the Titans into a finals force. But without time, education and a bit of TLC, Taylor will not be the answer to replacing DCE.
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