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 halfback in the 1990s and 2000s.
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). 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.
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Background
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.
Playing career
Taylor played for Sydney's Western Suburbs Magpies from 1990 to 1993. Starting from the bench for the first two 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 premiership-winning former Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs coach Warren Ryan and big-name, premiership-winning former Bulldogs players Andrew Farrar, David Gillespie and Paul Langmack at the Magpies. Taylor, now playing halfback, led the team to its first semi-finals appearance in nine years after starring in a play-off for fifth spot.
Wests made the final series again in 1992, but Taylor was temporarily benched mid-season. Ongoing conflict with 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 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. 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. Gregory’s. He ended up playing halfback for City for the next two years.
Coaching career
Parramatta Eels
Previously the assistant coach at the Parramatta Eels, he was appointed as head coach in May 2006 for the remainder of the season after Brian Smith left the club following the announcement of his sacking for season 2007. When Taylor took over as Parramatta coach, the club had only won 2 of its first 8 games. Taylor then guided Parramatta on a 9-game winning streak as the club finished in 8th place on the table and qualified for the finals. Parramatta were eliminated in the first week of the finals losing to minor premiers Melbourne 12–6.
South Sydney Rabbitohs
It was already planned that from 2007 Taylor was to join the South Sydney Rabbitohs as an assistant coach. In August 2006, it was announced he would replace Shaun McRae as head coach of the struggling South Sydney club. In his first year at Souths he took them to a top eight finish qualifying them for the finals. It was the first time since 1989 that Souths reached the finals.
On 17 September 2009 it was announced that Taylor had been sacked as coach by the club due to an altercation with second-rower David Fa'alogo during end-of-season celebrations. A visibly upset Taylor appeared on the NRL Footy Show later that evening and on a number of sport programs on Sydney radio in the following days to explain his conduct and subsequent dismay at his sacking.
Sydney Roosters roles
In 2011, Taylor returned to coaching with the Sydney Roosters Toyota Cup (Under-20s) team. His team made the semis in both 2011 and 2012.
With the sacking of Brian Smith at the end of 2012, Taylor was appointed assistant coach to new first grade coach Trent Robinson for the 2013 season.
Wests Tigers
On 29 September 2014 Taylor was announced as the head coach of the Wests Tigers for the next three seasons, starting from 2015.
On 20 March 2017 Taylor was sacked as Wests Tigers coach. After being terminated by Wests Tigers, it was revealed that Taylor was relieved of his duties partly due to poor results on the field but also for the fact that what the media had described as "The Big 4" at the club would not sign new contracts if Taylor was still the coach going forwards into the future. Taylor's time at Wests was also marred by an ugly feud with long time player Robbie Farah and resulted in Farah being demoted to reserve grade and then subsequently leaving the club altogether.
Return to Roosters staff
On 8 May 2017, the Sydney Roosters confirmed that Jason Taylor will be on-boarded as an assistant coach. Roosters coach, Trent Robinson, quickly clarified that Taylor would be an assistant to the coach.
On 5 September 2018, Taylor was announced as the new head coach of his former club the North Sydney Bears.
In Taylor's first year in charge at Norths, he guided the club to a third-placed finish at the end of the 2019 Canterbury Cup NSW regular season as they qualified for the finals for the first time since 2017.
North Sydney would go on to be eliminated from the 2019 Canterbury Cup NSW finals series as they lost both matches against South Sydney and Newtown.
After both of the 2020 and 2021 NSW Cup seasons were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor guided North Sydney to third on the table in the 2022 season. North Sydney would go on to lose both finals matches against Penrith and Canterbury.
In the 2023 NSW Cup season, Taylor guided North Sydney to the Minor Premiership and later the grand final where they would play against South Sydney. North Sydney lead the match with five minutes remaining before Souths scored a late try to win 22-18.
On 28 September, Taylor signed a two-year deal to become the new assistant coach at Canterbury.