OFFICIAL Elijah Taylor [Discussion]

[fibrodreaming]

I think one of the most important reasons he will want to stay with us is that, for the first time in his NRL career, he has been encouraged by the coaching staff to fully express himself as a footballer.

Everyone knew he was a hard working lock who did the dirty hit-ups and his 40+ tackles a game, but nobody in the NRL realised what a talented ball player his is. He seems very happy with the coaching staff - and why not, given they have helped him add a new dimension to his game, and put him firmly in the sights of the NZ selectors.

Why would he risk all that for a few extra dollars and go to a club which may not value his ball playing skills as highly as the Tigers.

 

[supercoach]

I think there is probably a deal on the table,but can not be registered with the NRL till Farah has decided what he is up to in 2017\. I think if he stays our cap will be full and if he goes depending on where and what we are paying towards his contract we will be able to sign Taylor and maybe another quality player

 

[marzie]

Elijah Taylor enjoying fresh start at Wests Tigers
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MICHAEL CARAYANNIS, The Sunday Telegraph
June 25, 2016 4:39pm
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ELIJAH Taylor was unwanted at one club but became a senior player at another just days later. Now he faces the possibility of finding his third club in six months, describing the rugby league rollercoaster as “a bit of a strange world”.
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Dumped to NSW Cup and unwanted by new coach Anthony Griffin at Penrith, Taylor was welcomed with open arms by the Wests Tigers.
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But with halves Mitchell Moses and Luke Brooks agreeing to rich one year deals for next season, Taylor faces the possibility of being squeezed out, having signed on at the Tigers for the remainder of 2016.
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Elijah Taylor is hoping he has found a home at Leichhardt.
“When I look back it was very frustrating,” Taylor said. “I worked really hard in the pre-season at Penrith. I played as hard as I could for the reserves. If you keep working hard you’ll get the result somewhere. This is the result.
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“Mentally it was very tough trying to get up for games and try and play as hard as you can for the reserves. It’s a bit of a strange world.
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“If someone told me last year that I’d be playing for the Tigers this year, I’d say ‘you’re crazy there is no way I’m leaving Penrith’. What’s happened to me is a great example of how something can change so quickly when there is a new coach or new agenda at a club.
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“I knew I wanted to come here and play first grade. I don’t know about any longer deals. (Joining three clubs in six months) would be pretty weird. It’s rugby league man, we all know it’s a business.”
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Taylor has been something of a lucky charm since his Tigers debut.
The Tigers have dropped just two of their five games since Taylor made his club debut in round 10\. Taylor said he felt comfortable with coach Jason Taylor’s desire to entrust him as a senior player.
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“His first message was leadership,” Elijah says of the coach. “He really wanted some more leaders in the team. That was the main point. One of my strong suits is defence.
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“We know we can attack. Defensively, mentally we need to be a bit stronger and keep turning up for each other. We do that, we can do anything in this competition.”
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The Tigers sit just two points outside the top eight. They get a chance to show if they are finals ready when they play the Storm in Melbourne on Sunday.
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“It’s going to tell us a lot about ourselves,” Taylor said. “It’s going to give us a gauge of where we are at as a playing group.”
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While Taylor has relished a return to the top grade since making his mid-season switch, the Kiwi international is struggling with Sydney’s traffic. Still living in Penrith’s heartland of Glenmore Park, he has battled with making the near daily journey to the Tigers Concord training base.
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“I leave home at 5.30 am, even if we start at 10 I’ll still leave early,” Taylor said. “I hate being late. I want to be here nice and early. I get to the tea room. Tim Grant just moved to Penrith so we’ll start car pooling.”

 

[Geo]

Young stars inspire new leader Taylor
Chris Kennedy Sun 26 Jun, 2016, 7:00am

By Chris Kennedy ‌, National Correspondent , NRL.com

Young stars inspire new leader Taylor
Wests Tigers lock Elijah Taylor during his club debut in Round 10\. Credit: Robb Cox. Copyright: NRL Photos.
Mid-season Wests Tigers recruit Elijah Taylor says a search for more senior leadership was behind his recruitment by coach Jason Taylor, and the 10-Test veteran has a new lease on life leading the talented young stars at the club around.

The Tigers have one of the youngest rosters in the NRL – at 25 Aaron Woods is a young captain and besides him, fellow Blues Origin rep Robbie Farah and veterans Chris Lawrence and Dene Halatau, significant NRL experience is thin on the ground at Concord.

So when out-of-favour Panther Elijah Taylor became available, coach Jason Taylor put the fellers out in an effort to boost his roster's big-game know-how.

The New Zealand international has slotted in like a dream, helping guide the team's attack, adding plenty of starch to the middle and helping the club to three wins in his five starts to lift them to within a win of the top eight.

**"Before I signed, talking to 'JT' – that (leadership) was probably the main reason to get me to come to the club," Taylor said.\
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"He wanted some more leadership because obviously we've got a really young team. Really young as in NRL games each, on average. That was the first pitch, was the leadership role.\
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"It's something I'm very comfortable with. It's something that I've done over my career. I'm really excited working with the young talent here.\
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"As senior players you need to set the good example, you need to do everything right, you need to make sure you're doing everything right so hopefully they can follow**."

The new signing described the level of young talent at the Tigers as "unbelievable". Specifically, young halves Luke Brooks and Mitch Moses as well as fullback James Tedesco, who as a unit have the potential to lead the club to plenty of success for years to come.

"They've got a lot of enthusiasm and it rubs off on a lot of the boys. It's really refreshing when you see them at training. Freakish skills," Taylor said.

"Just the enthusiasm they bring and it kind of lightens the mood sometimes, you can be really focused 100 per cent at training sometimes but just the enthusiasm rubs off and it's just really good to play alongside young talent who are going to be future stars of this game."

Both young talent and old will need to be switched on when the black and golds travel south to Melbourne on Sunday in search of what would be the joint venture's second win in their 12th visit to Melbourne (across Olympic Park, Docklands and AAMI Park).

Taylor himself will be representing the club in Melbourne for the first time but has his own unhappy memories of the city.

"I went there with Penrith last year. We got pumped (52-10). It was Cameron Smith's 300th game and we got smashed so it wasn't the best memories there!"

While Smith and fellow Kangaroo Cooper Cronk rightly get plenty of plaudits, Taylor says it's the big men up front – and their Kiwi Test contingent of Jesse Bromwich, Tohu Harris and Kevin Proctor in particular – who are the reason for Melbourne's recent hot run of NRL form.

"They've got a great system down there, a great culture. I know a lot of the boys from the Kiwis in that team and that's why they're so successful," Taylor said.

"[Their Kiwi Test forwards] are why they're on top of the table, I think. They can play long minutes, they're big, they've got skills, they've got good feet. Same with [Nelson Asofa] Solomona and [Dale] Finucane. They've got a great forward pack. I think it's very underrated and it's going to be a very tough game in the middle.

"We've got to go down there, turn up defensively and work hard defensively. That's all we've been doing over the last month, just working on our defence and slowly it's getting better. We've just got to keep that going."

http://www.nrl.com/young-stars-inspire-new-leader-taylor/tabid/10874/newsid/98408/default.aspx

 

[Regan]

Question would you dump Robbie Farah to keep Elijah Taylor at the club ?

Justin Pascoe has backed Elijah Taylor to stay and Robbie Farah to go and that is whats best for the club long term but would you do it to free up the cash :question:

I would after the Farah Sheens Drama after the Farah Potter Drama and after the Farah Taylor Drama

Its the professional decision making think to do to make the hard choice take the emotion out of it
for the club And when they do it people get upset just carnt win can they

 

[GNR4LIFE]

Where has Pascoe backed Farah to go?

 

[Regan]

Where has Pascoe backed Farah to go?

By backing Taylor what other choice does Farah have its very sad at times being a West Tigers supporter
What other angle can there be Farah has been great off the bench a try and two try assists against Souths he tackles can kick and is an origin player force Farahs hand to go else wear

 

[Sco77y]

Where has Pascoe backed Farah to go?

By backing Taylor what other choice does Farah have its very sad at times being a West Tigers supporter
What other angle can there be Farah has been great off the bench a try and two try assists against Souths he tackles can kick and is an origin player force Farahs hand to go else wear

I don't know if it matters at all, they will still need to pay out his contract in full, or at least part of it - which would still be huge. I don't feel that whether he goes or stays has much impact on us being in a position to retain ET.

 

[Tigerdon]

Question would you dump Robbie Farah to keep Elijah Taylor at the club ?

Justin Pascoe has backed Elijah Taylor to stay and Robbie Farah to go and that is whats best for the club long term but would you do it to free up the cash :question:

Yes. But not right now.
We have been going well and had a good chance to play finals football.
By pulling the trigger right now, our season is pretty much stuffed. IMO.
We won't be putting our best side out on the field. There will be no threat from DH.
Our young halves will be targeted.
This should never have happen in R20 when the team was going well. Poor management

 

[Flippedy]

I would want to keep Elijah Taylor for sure, but playing him as a ball distributing hooker just nullifies all his skills, imo.

So with no Farah, no Halatau, a broken down Matt Ballin and an out of favour Cherrington, who has JT got left to choose at dummy half? ET of course, and it's just as bad a decision as playing a half on the wing all season and expecting great results! :crazy

 

[Tigerdon]

If ET can't wait a couple of weeks to see if we can make the finals before signing a contract then he's not a team player.
Why can't this all be played out in a few weeks from now? That way we can keep our best team on the paddock for season 2016.

 

[Bob]

I would want to keep Elijah Taylor for sure, but playing him as a ball distributing hooker just nullifies all his skills, imo.

So with no Farah, no Halatau, a broken down Matt Ballin and an out of favour Cherrington, who has JT got left to choose at dummy half? ET of course, and it's just as bad a decision as playing a half on the wing all season and expecting great results! :crazy

Slightly off topic but why is Cherrington considered "out of favour" hasn't he been either injured??

 

[Chevy]

I heard Cherrington had the audacity to question JT about him being the 2nd best hooker in the club early in the season,since then he hasn't been sighted.

 

[tigerap]

I heard Cherrington had the audacity to question JT about him being the 2nd best hooker in the club early in the season,since then he hasn't been sighted.

if that is true….good...show him the door and on his way out give him his job description...I dont think it says Boss....

 

[newtiger]

Cherrington said that he would only sign with the Tigers if Taylor guaranteed him the number 1 hooking spot next year. As far as I'm concerned bye bye

 

[underdog]

Back the coach.

ALWAYS back the coach.

All the facebook bleeding hearts for robbie belt out the same tune - ITS DISRESPECTFUL, OMG IT"S PERSONAL, OMG F##K TAYLOR HE'S A CHUMP

Jason Taylor then comes out and says what we have all known and seen for the last 20 weeks, then on top of that FOX SPORTS CONFIRM THE LOT by going to the statistics.

Guys, love him or hate him -Jason Taylor isn't stupid. He's now finally been given his moment to prove it.

Get a lobster on the tigers to make the 8, and you will win enough to have a semi decent night out come September.

 

[goldcoast_tiger]

Cherrington said that he would only sign with the Tigers if Taylor guaranteed him the number 1 hooking spot next year. As far as I'm concerned bye bye

Why, if the halves can have a spot gauranrpteed , why can't another player do so as well. That's the problem when a Coach tells some players that they are there no matter how bad they play.
When others want the same thing you end up with team problems down the track, his favouritism is going to end up biting him on the bum

 

[Cultured_Bogan]

I would want to keep Elijah Taylor for sure, but playing him as a ball distributing hooker just nullifies all his skills, imo.

So with no Farah, no Halatau, a broken down Matt Ballin and an out of favour Cherrington, who has JT got left to choose at dummy half? ET of course, and it's just as bad a decision as playing a half on the wing all season and expecting great results! :crazy

Slightly off topic but why is Cherrington considered "out of favour" hasn't he been either injured??

Signed with Penrith apparently.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

I would want to keep Elijah Taylor for sure, but playing him as a ball distributing hooker just nullifies all his skills, imo.

So with no Farah, no Halatau, a broken down Matt Ballin and an out of favour Cherrington, who has JT got left to choose at dummy half? ET of course, and it's just as bad a decision as playing a half on the wing all season and expecting great results! :crazy

Slightly off topic but why is Cherrington considered "out of favour" hasn't he been either injured??

Signed with Penrith apparently.

Apparently with a clause he can renege if Farah leaves us. Grain of salt stuff though.

 

[goldcoast_tiger]

Question would you dump Robbie Farah to keep Elijah Taylor at the club ?

Justin Pascoe has backed Elijah Taylor to stay and Robbie Farah to go and that is whats best for the club long term but would you do it to free up the cash :question:

Yes. But not right now.
We have been going well and had a good chance to play finals football.
By pulling the trigger right now, our season is pretty much stuffed. IMO.
We won't be putting our best side out on the field. There will be no threat from DH.
Our young halves will be targeted.
This should never have happen in R20 when the team was going well. Poor management

Well after a few shooters put our koala bears on their arse a few times, they might let the coach know that they want a decent dummy half to take the pressure off them.
We will have a pretty good one in the reserve grade. On quite a bit of money too , I believe