With the curtain closing on the 2019 regular season and the top eight finally taking shape, we thought we would take a look at the top five disappointments of the 2019 season.
With the NRL now beginning to resemble a pinata more than a national sporting organisation following consistent scathing reviews of the current administration, the following organisations and individuals have been listed following their sub-par 2019 performance in conjunction with the reputation they garnered in previous seasons.
3. Ash Taylor
Ash Taylor had the world at his feet in 2017, with Cooper Cronk retiring from representative football and Taylor himself having a bumper second season in the NRL registering 19 assists for the Gold Coast Titans, the Toowoomba junior re-signed with the Titans on a massive $1 million a year deal until the end of 2021.
Seemingly the natural heir to Cronk's Maroons number 7 jumper, all Taylor had to do was maintain his upward trajectory and he was good as gold.
However, he still had an impressive 2018 season, registering 18 assists and three tries, but his tendency to float in and out of games meant he lost the Maroons halfback jersey to now captain Daly Cherry-Evans.
While missing out on an Origin jumper was no doubt a disappointment for the diminutive half, big things were still expected of Taylor heading into his fourth full season at the Titans and having been handed the keys to the team by his mentor Garth Brennan.
What followed on, no one could predict. Following an extremely poor start to the season in which many pundits questioned whether Taylor was living up to his $1 million salary, he was granted leave by the club to deal with personal issues.
After almost two months out of the game and having watched his team slump to 16th on the ladder, Taylor returned to the Titans side for their round 20 clash against the Roosters. They would go onto get flogged 58-6, with Taylor going onto be demoted to reserve grade in the following weeks after Titans coaching staff decided that it was best for the team and Taylor that he be removed from the first-grade squad for the remainder of the season.
Since then rumours have begun to swirl that the Titans are attempting to offload their once prized asset, with some reports even stating that the Titans were willing to contribute to his sizable pay packet if he were to leave. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Biggest disappointment is allowing Edwardwoodwood1 and his 5 aliases posting false statistics to elevate the otherwise member depleting, no junior roosters.
Don’t see the Dragons as a disappointment , i never had them near the 8 anyway.
Giving the roosters regular 2pm Sunday home games which is the prime slot for fans to attend which explains the reason the roosters are getting some attendances despite the majority crowd is opposition fans as pointed out by the commentators.
Must also be disappointing for the roosters club that the members bar has to be closed at home games this year because of no members showing up.