People's Choice Award finalist: Mangakahia sport coach Hayley Taylor

Cross-code coach Hayley Taylor (centre) surrounded by the kids from Maungatapere School which she coaches in a range of sports. Photo / John Stone

Over the next week, each of the four finalists in the Northern Advocate's People's Choice Award for community sport 'Sideline Champions' will be profiled. From March 21, you will be able to vote for your favourite and the winner will be announced at the Northland Sports Awards on April 3.

Today, we talk to our second finalist - Mangakahia cross-code coach Hayley Taylor about how she uses her experience as a player to help inform her on sideline behaviour

A love of sport runs through Hayley Taylor's veins.

Having signed off from a fruitful sporting career in both netball and rugby, the 44-year-old mother of two is now a key member in the Mangakahia/Maungatapere sporting communities.

Taylor, who represented Samoa at sevens and was on the fringes of a Black Ferns jersey, now acts as a coach or coordinator for a multitude of teams in rugby, league, touch, netball and basketball for Maungatapere School and respective Mangakahia sport clubs.

Hayley Taylor, 44, formerly played semi-professional rugby in Italy and England before settling down in Northland in 2003. Photo / John Stone

Taylor's sporting experience on and off the field has also made her passionate about creating a positive environment for Northland's sporting youth to grow up in, a great qualification for her position as a finalist for the Northern Advocate's people's choice 'Sideline Champions' award.

Raised on a Purua dairy farm, Taylor said she took to sport at an early age attending Mangakahia Area School and Kamo High School.

"Sport was me really as a kid, I was into anything I could get into," she said.

After training to become a physical education teacher in Auckland while making age-group netball sides, Taylor switched codes to rugby and travelled to Italy and England as a contracted rugby player.

Taylor's weeks and weekends are full of trainings and games for the range of teams she coaches and manages. Photo / John Stone

Returning home in 2003, Taylor played and coached netball before her son Joe was born and five years later, she embarked on her coaching journey in junior sport.

Five years on, Taylor had become one of many important cogs in the Mangakahia/Maungatapere sport machine, a fact she was humbled by.

"I get appreciated, which is nice because I know there's a need there," she said.

"I just do it for the kids because I got so much from sport, it's been a huge part of my life."

However, poor sideline behaviour had been a semi-regular occurrence in Taylor's playing and coaching days.

While she couldn't remember hearing much as a junior player, Taylor said one of the reasons she moved from netball to rugby was the intensity of a coach at the time.

"It was so intense, I was playing netball almost every day of the week in between club training and rep training and games."

Having experienced a bit of poor sideline behaviour as a rugby and netball coach, Taylor hoped the upcoming season would be better. Photo / John Stone

As a coach, Taylor said incidents in squash and basketball were virtually nonexistent while in rugby and netball, they were more common.

"[In rugby], you will often get comments from the sideline about a call and in netball, I've heard it as well and seen coaches being way too intense."

Taylor speculated the reasons for seeing more incidents in rugby and netball was because most parents and spectators knew more about codes in contrast to squash and basketball.

Taylor (right) issues directions for the next drill, closely listened to by 10-year-old Maungatapere School pupil Carter Iraia. Photo / John Stone

While she acknowledged almost no parent, coach or spectator would want to deliberately degrade a young player's experience, Taylor encouraged people to be more mindful in the upcoming winter season.

"You've got to just keep reminding yourself that they are kids and they are not expected to get everything right," she said.

"It is their game not ours, just let them enjoy it, relax and take a deep breath."