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'So proud': The star behind New South Wales' Women's State of Origin success

(Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

If Isabelle Kelly has played a better game than her Women’s State of Origin masterpiece, she can’t think of it.

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How about 192m, 13 tackle busts, 78m post-contact, a line break and the match-sealing try to ensure the shield would return to NSW for the first time since 2019?

The centre was a straightforward choice for the Nellie Doherty Medal on Friday night, although the humble 25-year-old tried to downplay her efforts after steering the Blues to a thrilling 20-14 win at Canberra’s GIO Stadium.

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“She says to me, I didn’t think I did anything … I was like, okay,” NSW coach Kylie Hilder said with a laugh.

“Every time she comes out and plays a game, that’s how she performs and she gives her all.

“I’m just so lucky that she gets to play on my side and I get to coach her, and I’m so proud of her effort tonight.”

Of her sealing try, made possible after she danced around Maroons’ defenders and found the corner, Kelly struggled to find the words to encapsulate her emotions.

“I was in a bit of trance to be honest, but it was amazing,” she said.

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“We spoke about it all week just with our shape and staying composed and just building pressure, and I think that’s exactly what we did.”

Kelly adds the Origin success to her NRLW premiership earlier this year, part of the Sydney Roosters side that knocked off St George Illawarra in the grand final.

“It was really special … I’ve had a very lucky year and that really tops the cake with that one,” she said.

“The bond seems pretty strong, it is so strong … we’ve been building towards this for two years, but I just knew that we had the right people in the right positions this time.”

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J
JW 1 hour ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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