TIME TO STEP UP FOR ASH
Taylor’s billing as next big thing no longer enough
COACH CHALLENGE TO HIS STAR
IT’S one thing to be labelled the NRL’s next best player. It is another living up to that huge hype.
Until now, Ash Taylor has appeared burdened by the expectation.
But after dropping seven kilograms over the summer, Gold Coast coach Garth Brennan has challenged his gun No. 7 to grab hold of his own destiny in 2019.
This time last year it was Matty Johns who came out and declared “it is just a matter of time” before Taylor became the game’s best player. But
12 months on and Brennan concedes the career of the prodigious playmaker is at the crossroads.
Taylor turns 24 on March 17, the same day Gold Coast kick off their season at home to Canberra. Brennan said every indication was that Taylor is set for his biggest season yet.
“Hopefully. Everyone has been waiting for it, haven’t we?” Brennan said.
“At least he has got himself in the best shape. He is the lightest he has been for a long time. He is down to 87kg.
“I think he played between 92-94kg last year. It was too heavy and he knew that.” Taylor was forced to withdraw from this week’s All Stars game in Melbourne after undergoing a recent shoulder clean-out to ensure he is ready to start the season, with Brennan’s aim to play Taylor in the trial against Brisbane on March 2.
“In November we were doing some wrestling and he landed awkwardly on it,” Brennan said.
“We had it scanned and there was no real damage to the shoulder, there was just a bit of impingement going on. It just hadn’t come good.
“So I said to the doctor, ‘look, what are our options?’
“He said we either go along the way we are going, and needle it and try and get it right and eventually it might come good during the season, or we operate.
“Ash was a bit disappointed about missing All Stars but he understands that he can’t go carrying a shoulder through the whole year.”
“Otherwise that is not going to help him get to his ultimate goal of playing semifinal football for the Titans and also playing for Queensland,” Brennan said.
“You are not going to do that with a bung shoulder.”
Brennan also believes the arrival of Mal Meninga as the Titans’ head of performance and culture can only benefit Taylor’s development.
Meninga is not the type of hold back from having a tough conversation, even with the greatest of players.
It’s legendary how he told Darren Lockyer, Petero Civoniceva and Steve Price they were on their last chance for Queensland in 2006.
It was that conversation that inspired the start of the Maroons’ all-conquering dynasty.
Many believe if Taylor lives up his potential he could own the Queensland and Australian No 7 jumper for years to come. But that will only happen if he puts in the hard work and sacrifice off the field as well as on it.
“Obviously having Mal in his ear at times to say, ‘mate, this is what we need from you’ is also going to be a massive bonus for us,” Brennan added.
“At least with Ash knowing he is the fittest he has ever been he knows he can be on the ball all the time, not looking for shortcuts and not looking for places to hide.
“Because he knows he has done the hard work. It is just about being professional.
“That is where I have challenged Ash this year, (saying to him) ‘whatever you have done in the past, mate, hasn’t been enough. I need you … (to) just ask yourself, is this going to get me to where I want to be?”