{"id":146974,"date":"2025-09-16T08:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T08:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146974\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T08:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T08:30:07","slug":"how-isabelle-kelly-shook-off-getting-her-teeth-pushed-back-to-return-for-roosters-nrlw-finals-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146974\/","title":{"rendered":"How Isabelle Kelly shook off getting her ‘teeth pushed back’ to return for Roosters’ NRLW finals charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isabelle Kelly has long been one of the best players in NRLW but after her quick return from a recent jaw injury she might also be one of the toughest.<\/p>\n

The Roosters skipper’s season seemed to be in the balance just over a fortnight ago when she copped an accidental elbow to the face from Fran Goldthorp in the Tricolours 30-0 win over North Queensland.<\/p>\n

Scans later cleared her of a broken jaw but the resulting oral fracture<\/a> was no joke.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard to explain, but basically my teeth got pushed back and sat on the bones and that’s what fractured,” Kelly said.<\/p>\n

“Everyone saw that, because they got pushed so far back in my mouth, but they got pushed back in.<\/p>\n

“I have a splint on my teeth that they put on when I landed back from Townsville. It wasn’t too sore, but mentally an injury like that can have an effect and make you feel low.”<\/p>\n

Originally, Kelly was tipped to make her return for the Roosters first finals match, which will be next week against the winner of Saturday’s elimination final between the Cowboys and Cronulla.<\/p>\n

With her side already locked into a home final, Kelly could have easily put the feet up. But instead she returned after just one match out, lining up for the Tricolours regular season finale against the Sharks.<\/p>\n

“After about a week, I got back into training, when I was confident to do so and did some contact to see how I felt,” Kelly said.<\/p>\n

Aiken’s NRLW season over<\/a><\/p>\n

Tarryn Aiken will miss the Sydney Roosters’ NRLW finals campaign, with scans confirming a knee injury that will require a knee reconstruction.<\/p>\n

“The funny thing is I wasn’t in pain, I haven’t been in pain since they pushed it back in.<\/p>\n

“[Coach John Strange] was really great with letting me take the lead as to whether I wanted to play or not but the body felt great and I’m the type of person that would never put myself out there if I wasn’t right.”<\/p>\n

Kelly produced what for her is standard fare but for anyone else would be a stand-out display, which is why she’s still in contention to win the Dally M Medal as the competition’s player of the year.<\/p>\n

The hard-running centre scored a try, ran for 213 metres and accumulated a season high 96 post-contact metres, putting paid to any thoughts of hesitation or uncertainty following her recovery.<\/p>\n

While Kelly got a game under her belt before the Roosters began their semi-final charge, the premiership favourites suffered a major blow in the 40-10 romp with halfback Tarryn Aiken suffering an ACL injury.<\/p>\n

Jocelyn Kelleher is expected to move to halfback, with Corban Baxter to return from a knee injury at five-eighth.<\/p>\n

The duo are well-acquainted, having played four matches together in the halves earlier in the season, including a 30-26 win over premiership rivals Brisbane.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

“Having Joce build and play that dominant role as the halfback and have Corban [Baxter] come back, when she adds so much leadership and experience, it helps make sure that individually we play the roles we know we can play,” Kelly said.<\/p>\n

“It helps us step up and makes sure we don’t just rely on one or two people.”<\/p>\n

Kelleher made her New South Wales debut earlier this season. Kelly believes she’s used State of Origin as a springboard for her best season in first grade.<\/p>\n

“Since Origin, [Kelleher] has really worked hard and the series helped her build a lot of confidence,” Kelly said.<\/p>\n

“She’s flown under the radar for a few years now but I think she’s cemented herself as one of the top players in the women’s league.<\/p>\n

“She knows what she’s great at \u2014 that’s her kicking game and vision, and she dominates within that kicking game which makes her so hard to stop.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isabelle Kelly has long been one of the best players in NRLW but after her quick return from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,54317,99408,158,25993,99409,85,1080],"class_list":{"0":"post-146974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-isabelle-kelly","11":"tag-jaw-injury","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-nrlw","14":"tag-nrlw-finals","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-sydney-roosters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}