With the Wyong Roos’ omission in the Intrust Super Premiership, Rip Taylor endured a period of uncertainty.
It is confirmed, however, that he is not lost to the game at this level. Taylor will coach the Wentworthville Magpies in the Intrust Super Premiership next season.
The Magpies missed the finals last year and used a massive 52 players throughout the year. In a team seeking improvement within a wider Parramatta club also looking up, Rip is Taylor-made for the role.
His record speaks for itself. In 39 years of coaching he’s taken teams to 33 finals series, 24 grand finals and won 12 premierships.
For Parramatta and Wentworthville, the most important of those statistics are the two premierships he coached them to.
In 2007 he coached the Parramatta Eels to the then-NSW Cup premiership, before they formed into Wentworthville the next year for the exact same result.
2019 marks Rip Taylor’s 40th year as a coach, with most of them being in the Central Coast-Newcastle region. He started his coaching career at just 20 years old while still playing as a halfback when he took Bellingen to their first Group 2 premiership in 19 years.
Taylor went on to captain-coach Lakes to back-to-back Newcastle premierships in 1985-86, before coaching them to three Grand Final appearances in his second stint from 2000-2002 (winning 2001).
He took the reigns of the Newcastle Knights Jersey Flegg team and steered them to a Grand Final in 2006 before the back-to-back Parramatta/Wentworthville premierships.
More recently he’s been the coach of the Wyong Roos Intrust Super Premiership team. With them he took them to two Grand Final appearances in 2015 and 2017.
Taylor spoke to NSWRL.com.au last year when he was uncertain about his future as a coach at this level.
He said it would be hard to walk away from his post given the Roos’ omission, but appreciated how lucky he was to have so much time in the sun as a coach.
Turns out the day is not over for Taylor, the sun shines brightly over Ringrose Park.
