The Cats face an uphill battle to retain the out-of-contract Brownlow medallist, who is reportedly being offered $1.5million a year to join the new Gold Coast franchise.
Ablett starred with 37 possessions and two goals in Friday night’s win over Essendon.
Taylor said it was a remarkable performance considering the intense pressure the dual premiership player had been under during the week.
“Gary has the ability to just turn it on. From a personal point of view I’d love to play with him rather than against him, so I certainly would be willing [to take a pay cut], but I can’t speak for the whole group,” Taylor told BigPond Sports Weekend.
“Gary is very level-headed. He keeps a lot of his personal life private, which is a great way to be. The players don’t seem to worry about it at all. It’s in the papers so often, but we tend to just worry about what we need to do and that’s to win games of football.”
Taylor was involved in one of the pivotal moments of the game during an enthralling third quarter.
Bomber forward Jay Neagle had the opportunity to put his side 29 points ahead when he marked inside 50m midway through the quarter, but he opted to play on and was brought down in a tackle from Taylor.
“Neagle took a great mark and caught me out of position. I was pretty bitter when I missed the spoil because I thought I’d have a goal kicked on me, my first one for the year,” Taylor said.
“He turned around and tried to take me on, which was great for me and I managed to run him down.”
Geelong kicked nine straight goals from the end of the third term and went onto claim victory by 31 points.
The Cats fumbled uncharacteristically in the first half and were beaten to the ball by the spirited Essendon outfit.
The reigning premier instructed their seasoned players not to return to the club for pre-season training until January and Taylor said the limited preparation contributed to his side’s lacklustre start.
“We played our practice games at high intensity and train at a high intensity, so we feel as a playing group that we should be ready but I guess that it did show last night. I’d hate to use that as an excuse for our slow start, but it may have had some impact as to why we were a bit sloppy early on.”
