When Hull FC legend Scott Taylor hung up his playing boots at the end of the 2023 season, he thought long and hard about what would come next. But one thing was never in doubt: he would stay in rugby league.

This is the sport he has loved all of his life, and the passion is there to see. A big personality, that passion was always there during a 14-year playing career, and now it resonates strongly again as a coach.

Taking charge of new League 1 outfit Goole Vikings, who were accepted by the RFL into the third tier last autumn, Taylor is now looking to make his mark in a new role. Signing a full-time deal as head coach of the East Yorkshire club, the 33-year-old has dived headfirst into everything, establishing the organisation ahead of a first season in the professional ranks. The excitement is there to see.

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"It's been really good, mate; I'm really enjoying it," Taylor told Hull Live. "I had that break after playing, and I made sure then that I definitely wanted to do it. I've come back into it now, and I'm just glad I made that decision.

"It was probably June or July last year when I first started looking into it, so there's been a lot of planning over the last six months. We then got to work, and I've been in with the lads for a couple of months now for pre-season, and I find myself very fortunate to have a very good group of lads around me with some top senior lads who are making my life easy.

"I've got a really good support network of staff around me. It's a small network, as you expect in League 1, but I'm just enjoying the ride. I've had a real big chance to implement my methods on the lads, and I'm just excited now to get them out on the field and just see what we can do with some more final preparation done."

Setting up everything, Goole have started pretty much from scratch with new players, new staff, new equipment, new everything. That has seen Taylor put in the hours alongside another former Hull FC man in James Clark.

"There's been a lot of hours," he continued. "It's a full-time job, but I agreed to a full-time contract. This is a full-time role, but James Clark is a part of it too, and he's been a massive help. He's done a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

"I've taken everything into account, and I think it really helped me doing the five years at Beverley A.R.L.F.C., but this is a brand-new professional team, and we've got some really dedicated staff and volunteers. We've covered everything, and we've gone from checklist to checklist, making sure we've got everything we need, even to game day in the changing rooms. Everything has been bought brand new, so the good thing going into next season is there will be a lot of costs already covered this year. We've just ticked every box in order for us to be a professional club."

And while no stone has been left unturned, the biggest box tick for Taylor was his playing squad. Starting with a blank sheet, 24 players have now been signed, including former Hull FC teammate and Challenge Cup-winner Jamie Shaul, who, at 32, has come out of retirement to play for him. Elsewhere, the club has also signed former England international Brett Ferres, with the likes of Thomas Minns and Josh Guzdek on the books, with youth in Jeylan Hodgson, Mackenzie Harman, and the like.

Speaking on his squad, who are in action for the first time as a professional club at Featherstone Rovers this Tuesday evening, Taylor outlined the recruitment process. He explained: "We've said yes to some players, and we've said no to some players. There's been a bit of negotiating back and forth, but we've put together a squad that we've worked really hard on.

"We went really hard at trying to get that balance right. We've got a few older lads who are here for their last hurrah, and they want to be part of something special one last time. We've got experience; we've got players who have been and done it 200-300 times already. And then we've got lads who are young and who have just been released from a full-time environment and who still think they can make it at Super League and who have that real chip on their shoulder to prove a point. I've really worked hard to try and find that balance."

In pre-season training, Goole's team chemistry is already forming, with Taylor already having a vision of how he wants to play. That vision is currently being put into practice, with the Hull-born coach wanting his side to defend strongly and base their game on winning the forwards battle.

"I want us to work hard, be fit, and be defensive first," Taylor said. "I want to make sure that we are really proud of our goal-line defence and that we've got good line speed about us, and then we can play off the back of that.

"I jokingly have a crack with my middles all of the time, saying, 'It's unlucky for you.' It's a line Waney (Shaun Wane) used to say to me, but he'd expect the most out of his middles as he was a middle, and that's true. I expect the most out of my middles, as I think the game is won in the battle in the middle with your line speed, your defence, and then your go-forward.

"Off the back of that, we've got some talent in our team and some speed out wide to finish tries. For me, it's all about that territory battle, that arm wrestle, and being very defensive-minded first, and then when we do have the ball, we play what we see and get people like Shaul, Gudzek and Reece Dean into space and hopefully cause people some problems."

And as for Goole, there is a long-term plan, one to turn the outfit into a Championship club with a new facility in the works. Off the field, there is scope for growth, with Taylor outlining the impact of the sport and a new club on the town.

"We're in a rugby league hotbed, and there is a five-year plan here," he explained. "We want to get into the Championship and sustain that level. It is a new team, though, and we don't want to run before we can walk, but it's exciting.

"There's a £7.5 million ground development going on at the minute; the main stand is going to be knocked down soon, and they'll start building the other stand. If you see our fixture list, you'll think, 'What's going on there?' But we've got three games at home, and then we're away from home for about three months while the new pitch gets dug out and laid. That's why we're finishing with seven home games to finish the season.

"We'll have a new pitch done by then, and then come December this year, we'll have the keys handed over to the new main stand, which has a hospitality section in there that holds 180 people. That'll be a massive boost for the club to sell commercial packages and just have more exciting things for sponsors to be involved in."

Taylor added: "There's a lot of people with a thirst for rugby league; every time I go into Goole, I see Hull FC tops, Hull KR tops, Leeds Rhinos tops, and now they have their own team to come and support. It's mad; I've bumped into fans from other teams, and some of them have bought passes and are excited to come and watch. We're hitting fans from all over the place, and the support from the town has been unbelievable. It's just good to see an exciting story coming out of rugby league; it's change, it's new, and it's something people can get behind and support.

"There's no big expectation or pressure. Historically, you look at League 1 teams that come in, and they don't do that well in the first few years, but we're going to try and be a lot more competitive. We'll see how the season unfolds and how we're looking. We're just really excited to get going."

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