Jason Taylor

Jason Taylor (born 2 February 1971) is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and a former professional rugby league footballer who played as a in the 1990s and 2000s.

A New South Wales State of Origin representative goal-kicking halfback of the 1990s and early 2000s, Taylor set a number of point-scoring and appearance records in the NRL during a twelve-year career with the Western Suburbs Magpies, North Sydney Bears, Northern Eagles and Parramatta Eels.

Taylor was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

He spent his junior years at Green Valley JRLFC and the Ashcroft Stallions JRLFC, in Sydney's south-western suburbs.

He first attended Ashcroft High School before spending his late teenage years St Gregory's College, Campbelltown.

Taylor played for Sydney's Western Suburbs Magpies from 1990 to 1993.

Starting from the bench for the first 2 games of the 1990 season, Taylor spent most of the season playing five-eighth outside Ivan Henjak.

Still a teenager, he was often called "baby-faced".

In what was a poor season for the Magpies, Taylor was described as "the best of the babies" in the NSWRL for the season.

1991 saw the arrival of coach Warren Ryan and big-name players Andrew Farrar, David Gillespie and Paul Langmack at the Magpies.

Taylor, now playing halfback, lead the team to its first semi-finals in nine years after starring in a play-off for fifth spot.

Wests made the semis again in 1992, but Taylor was temporarily benched mid-season.

Ongoing conflict with Warren Ryan saw Taylor seeking an early release from his contract.

The release was not granted and Taylor remained for the 1993 season.

Taylor said, "The press came up with some interesting reasons why I wanted to leave, but I prefer to keep most of them to myself because they have been pretty well resolved. One reason, however, was I thought our style of play was too restrictive, too structured and by the end of the year, very predictable. I wasn't the only player to think that way.

Ryan stated in 1993, "I've made every effort to rectify the things that were buggering him up last year. I did the same thing with Benny Elias when I was at Balmain. Jason is very, very talented mentally. We've rectified the problem we had and taken every step to resurrect his game. And to his credit when we told him he wouldn't be released he wasn't negative at all. He's done a lot of sprint work and he's worked hard."

Later that season, Ryan suspended Taylor from first grade after an "outburst" aimed at teammate Paul Langmack at half-time in a match.

The Wests Magpies board later overturned the suspension.

In 1993, Taylor made his representative debut with City Origin, playing from the bench.

Taylor was also selected to play for the New South Wales team in the 1993 State of Origin series.

He was chosen on the bench for all three games, but did not take the field in the first game of the series.

Coach Phil Gould said, "if anything happened to Ricky we needed a capable and experienced halfback to go in with a similar game-type to Ricky. Jason's kicking and passing game is along the same lines and would allow fellows like Daley and Fittler the same room as if they were playing with Ricky."

Described as, "the form player of the premiership" in 1994, Country Rugby League general manager David Barnhill claimed that Taylor should be eligible to play for the Country team due to his time spent at St. Gregorys.

He ended up playing halfback for City for the next two years.

Taylor played with the North Sydney Bears from 1994 to 1999, While at North Sydney, Taylor played a pivotal role in the team and set numerous records.

Taylor also won The Rothmans medal in 1996 as being the game's best and fairest player.

Taylor has scored more points for the North Sydney Bears than any other player to have been at the club with 1274 points.

In January 1997, Taylor was escorted from the Sydney Cricket Ground following unruly behaviour at an Australian Cricket match.

It was alleged that Taylor and some of his North Sydney teammates had been backing up from a bucks party the night before when they proceeded to urinate in plastic cups and throw it over patrons during a Mexican wave.

Taylor was then axed as an Australia Day ambassador by Central Coast organisers.

In the 1997 preliminary final against the Newcastle Knights, Taylor missed 3 out of 5 conversions in North Sydney's 17–12 defeat.

The most crucial when scores were locked at 12-12 after Taylor set up Michael Buettner for a try moments before.

With 3 minutes remaining, Norths had a chance to play in their first grand final in 54 years if Taylor could kick that goal.

The normally reliable Taylor missed the conversion and Newcastle player Matthew Johns went down the other end of the field and kicked a field goal to make it 13–12.

With seconds remaining Norths frantically threw the ball around the field, Owen Craigie swooped on a loose pass and raced away to score the match winning try to make it 17–12.

This was North Sydney's 4th preliminary final defeat in 6 years.

In the 1998 NRL season, Taylor made 26 appearances as Norths finished 5th on the table.

Taylor played in both finals matches against Parramatta and Canterbury-Bankstown which ended in defeat.

He was the assistant coach of the Sydney Roosters in 2018 when the club won the premiership that year.

He was also previously the head coach of the Parramatta Eels, South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Wests Tigers in the National Rugby League (NRL).