Ashley Taylor holds all the cards as Gold Coast Titans try to lock in the young star

FOR every Next Big Thing, a host of players fail to live up to expectation. That hasn’t stopped NRL clubs splashing the cash and hoping for the best, writes Robert Craddock.

Titans playmaker Ash Taylor.

BUYING off the plan is a dangerous proposition whether it’s an inner-city unit or a rugby league player.

You can sign up for a million-dollar pad with glorious views then — curse it all — a skyscraper goes up over the road and your horizon view is suddenly blocked by someone’s bedroom even before you move in.

Hopefully it won’t happen in the NRL but with the player market hotter than a desert highway and desperate coaches scrambling to save jobs, it’s only a matter of time before one of the mega-gambles on young talent goes “pop’’.

There’s two ways of getting a million bucks a year in rugby league.

You can go the Johnathan Thurston/Cameron Smith/Greg Inglis bricks and mortar route where each outstanding year is a gold-plated bargaining chip which, staked side-by-side, make clubs feel as if they are investing in blue-chip bank shares.

Gold Coast Titans want to lock Ash Taylor is for a three-year deal.

Or you can be the man off the plan like young Ash Taylor, who good judges tell us will become so exceptional his next contract signing has the potential to reshape the entire landscape of Queensland football.

He could be that good, potentially great maybe, but he is not there yet.

While he may be the reigning rookie of the year, so once were Luke Brooks, Chris Sandow and Tim Smith.

Taylor is chasing a million dollars a year for his next deal.

Will he get it? Yes. If the Titans don’t reach their promised figure the club who beats them will have to.

Tim Smith never lived up to expectation.

Chris Sandow also never reached the peak of his ability. Pic Jono Searle.

Is he worth it? Not sure. Is he a gamble clubs simply must take? For the Broncos, not at that money. For the Cowboys maybe. For the Titans yes.

Taylor’s great potential has the Titans all at once excited, trapped and vulnerable.

Even if they are not convinced he is a million-dollar man, they are like a cornered poker player who must pay that figure just to see his rival’s hand. Life may be uncertain with him but it would be positively miserable without him.

For three decades, Gold Coast teams have floated in and out of the premiership with more fashion changes than Madonna.

If they are going to bust free and surge to a brighter world, the storyline almost has to be Taylor doing for them what Thurston did for the Cowboys.

Is Ash Taylor worth the big bucks?

Kevin Walters said this year that million-dollar players “have to be special players who can win games themselves — they are a rare breed like Langer, Lewis and Lockyer.’’

When Mal Meninga became rugby league’s first $100,000 player in the 1980s, the figure made eyes pop but it was a case of a proven player getting a solid-gold reward for a solid-gold career. Potential did not come into it.

It does now and that makes it a world of great opportunity for the likes of Taylor and Anthony Milford but one of great expectation and pressure.

Thurston and Smith ate this pressure for breakfast but it’s more difficult to swallow if you are a man off the plan watching those big trucks pour cement across the road.

Originally published as Ashley Taylor holds all the cards as Gold Coast Titans try to lock in the young star