Taylor emulates Elgey

Aquis Gold Coast Titans signing for next season, Ashley Taylor, has certainly dominated the NYC under-20s competition in 2015 – culminating in his selection as halfback in the NYC Team of the Year announced today.

This time last year fellow halfback Kane Elgey was selected on the bench in the team of the year from the Titans side, and later was a surprise choice as NYC player of the year at the Dally M awards.

The Titans are hoping history will repeat itself, if not in Taylor following in Elgey’s footsteps on awards night but at least that he has an equally rapid adaption to the NRL ranks.

They are 14 months apart in age and 2kg in weight (Taylor at 87kg, Elgey at 85kg), with Elgey is a left-footer and Taylor a right-foot kicker, but the similarities are pace, good footy instinct, great kicking game, goalkicking skills and a capacity to listen and learn.

A look through the Holden Cup’s top statistical performers this season shows what sort of player – and prospect – Taylor is.

After being chosen in the Junior Kangaroos in May, He finished at the top of the competition’s points-scorers with 203 points from nine tries, 83 goals and a field goal. He was also the top goal-scorer with 83 from 110 attempts at 75 per cent success rate.

Taylor led the competition with 40-20 kicks with four and was second in try-assists with 27, behind only Te Marie Martin from Wests Tigers.

He was 11^th with line-break assists with 17.

His Broncos side finished second on the ladder but went down to third-placed North Queensland on Saturday night, beaten 36-24 which means they must play the Warriors on Saturday.

Taylor has been out of action since suffering a compound fracture in his hand in his NRL debut in the final round cash with the Storm and will miss all the finals series.

The 2015 Holden Cup Team of the Year is: