Kelly could dominate for a decade, says Jillaroos coach

Jillaroos coach Brad Donald has predicted Sydney Roosters centre Isabelle Kelly could dominate the game for another decade after the 21-year-old won the inaugural RLIF Women's Golden Boot award as the best female player at international level.

Kelly, who was player of the match in NSW's historic Women's State of Origin victory at North Sydney Oval in June, was announced as the Golden Boot winner at a dinner in Leeds on Wednesday night.

Australian teammates Ali Brigginshaw and Brittany Breayley, who both played for NRLW premiers Brisbane, were shortlisted for the award, along with Kiwi Ferns and St George Illawarra superstar Honey Hireme and England's Georgia Roche, the 2018 Woman of Steel.

Kelly earned the award after spearheading the Jillaroos to a 23-16 defeat of the Kiwi Ferns with a two try hail in last December's World Cup final at Suncorp Stadium and repeating the effort in Auckland last month.

On that occasion, she scored twice in the last 10 minutes as the Jillaroos came from behind to edge out the Kiwi Ferns 26-24 and Donald revealed that Kelly had played a greater role after switching from the left edge to mark Hireme at right centre.

Donald said he was reluctant to single out any player in the Jillaroos squad but declared Kelly a worthy winner of the Golden Boot for her role in Australia's success.

"I think in terms of having an influence at international level over the past 12 months, there has certainly been some great contributors and some great team efforts by the Jillaroos, including Ali and Britt, but Izzy's ability to finish a game is second to none," Donald said.

"In the World Cup final, there was a moment where Izzy put in that extra effort to chase a ball really hard to get a 1000-1 bounce into her hands and she scored to win the World Cup.

"Then in Auckland a few weeks ago, not too many people would have realised that because of an injury [to Jess Sergis] in the captain's run we had an inexperienced player in the centres opposite Honey and we had to get Izzy to swap sides to mark up on her.

"She ended up getting two tries and won the game for us. Those are the type of individual efforts that stand out for me."

Since joining the Jillaroos squad during Donald's first season as coach in 2016, Kelly has made the most of every opportunity.

She received her first chance to wear an Australian jersey at the NRL Nines due to an injury and made her Test debut last year in Canberra under similar circumstances when Sam Bremner was concussed at the captain's run.

"She is only young and inexperienced around the game but she has got all the qualities of a Jillaroo," Donald said. "She just loves her footy and being around her mates.

"I can't think of anyone who has been more influential at representative level in the last year and she has potentially got 10 or 12 more years ahead of her. Isabelle is 15 years younger than Honey, who is still having a massive impact on the game so she has got the world at her feet."