🐇 Jason Taylor | Rabbitohs Coach #28

Full Name: Jason Dean Taylor
Nickname: JT
Born: 2/2/1971 at Sydney, NSW
Club Playing Career: Wests Sydney 1990-93; North Sydney 1994-99; Northern Eagles 2000; Parramatta 2001
Representative Playing Career: City Origin 1993-95; NSW 1993 (three games)
Club Coaching Career: Parramatta 2006; South Sydney 2007-09; Sydney Roosters; Wests Tigers 2015-17
Awards and Accolades: Rothmans Medal (Best and Fairest) 1996; North Sydney Life Membership 2024

In 1989, Jason Taylor played two games for the Australian Schoolboys against the touring BARLA Young Lions, scoring a try. He was graded by Wests and made his first grade debut with the Magpies in 1990. He was dropped to reserve grade in 1992, however Wests' good early season form in 1993 was largely the result of Taylor’s more confident and mature efforts and he was selected as a reserve back in two State of Origin matches that year.

Signing with Norths in 1994, Taylor rode the back of the fearsome Bears' pack and proved to be a match-winner when he kicked Norths into the preliminary final with a late field goal against defending premiers Brisbane. Norths were consistent semi-finalists in the late 1990s and on four occasions (1994 and 1996-98) Taylor scored over 200 points in a season. In 1996, he became the last winner of the Rothmans Medal as best and fairest player in the Sydney competition.

Assuming the North Sydney captaincy, Taylor became the first clubman to pass 1000 career points and established a host of club records – most points in a match (26 points in 1996 and 1997, equaling the great Harold Horder), most points in a season (242 points from ten tries, 98 goals and 6 field goals in 1997) and most points for the club (1,274 points) – before Norths merged with Manly in 2000.

Taylor did not fit into Northern Eagles’ coach Peter Sharp’s plans and his dropping from the team ended a record 194 consecutive first grade appearances. He successfully gained a release to play with Parramatta after taking the unusual step of writing an impassioned letter to Eels’ coach Brian Smith asking for a chance to end his career in the top grade.

Taylor displayed vintage form with the Eels and surged past Mick Cronin’s career goal-kicking record of 856 goals. In July 2001, Taylor surpassed Daryl Halligan’s career point-scoring record in accumulating 2,107pts from 47 tries, 942 goals and 35 field goals in his 12 seasons, which has since been bettered by Cameron Smith. He retired after Parramatta’s loss in the 2001 grand final – personally vindicated – and took on a coaching role with the ARL Foundation and with the Eels.

When coach Brian Smith stood down early in the season, Taylor took over the first grade coaching duties and took the Eels to the finals – a feat unprecedented in the history of the game for a stand-in coach.

Taylor had already accepted an assistant coach role at Souths but before the 2007 season started, he was promoted to head coach at the expense of Shaun McRae. The 2007 season was one of the most important years in the history of this grand old club, with Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes à Court taking over as new owners of the club after securing a majority vote from their Members. The Club attracted plenty of big-name recruits, with new sponsors coming on board and even radical jersey designs and logos were thrown in to coincide with the turnaround.

And with all those exciting new changes there was a new air of confidence at the club. After winning the wooden spoon the previous season, the Rabbitohs fans finally had something to cheer about and after eighteen long years they made the semi-finals in 2007, their first appearance since 1989. Even though Manly knocked them out in the Elimination Final, the club was hungry for more success.

2008 was the Centenary Year of Rugby League in Australia and the Rabbitohs were primed for another stellar year after securing one of their favourite sons to return home, Craig Wing. However, the season couldn’t have started worse after a cruel blow saw Wing injured in the eighth minute of the opening game when Sydney Roosters hooker Riley Brown dropped his shoulder into his back.

Wing was brought in to be their playmaker, who had a heavy responsibility for driving the team around the park and spark their attack. But after their round one loss to the Roosters it was all downhill from there, with only one win in twelve games. Taylor had no choice but to drop and change his combination to come up with a winning formula, and in the process Issac Luke and Chris Sandow were the two young standouts to make their debut during the year.

They found a purple patch after round 13 when they won five games-in-a-row and with a bye it put them just three points outside the top eight. But their slump in form returned after they won only two of their last eight games.

The Rabbitohs began their 2009 season in great style, with a 52-12 thrashing of arch-rivals, the Sydney Roosters, and for eleven rounds they held their place in the top eight. However, in the end, they were two points short of making the semi-finals. Taylor was involved in an incident at the end of the season and the club announced his contract termination on 17 September, with John Lang taking over the following season.

Taylor returned in 2011 as Sydney Roosters NYC Toyota Cup Under-21s coach, taking them to the semi-finals in 2011 and 2012. The following season Sydney Roosters promoted him to be assistant coach to their new NRL coach, Trent Robinson.

Wests Tigers announced Jason Taylor as their new coach on 29 September 2014 for the next three seasons. The Tigers removed him on 20 March 2017 and in May of the same year, he returned to the Roosters as NRL assistant coach.

He then coached the North Sydney Bears in the NSW Cup between 2019-2023, taking them to a minor premiership in 2023, but they lost the nail-biting grand final to the Rabbitohs by 22-18. He then shifted to become Canterbury’s NRL assistant coach.