NRLW and Blues star Kezie Apps on her commute from Bega to Sydney to play rugby league

Kezie Apps has one of the longest contracts in the NRLW, but still lives like a nomad during the season as she travels from Bega to Sydney. The 34-year-old reveals how she powers through and why she’s nowhere near done playing yet.

Kezie Apps makes a six-hour drive from Bega to Sydney for training and games.

The round trip from Bega to Sydney isn’t for the weak.

It’s a six-hour trek each way, around 500 kilometres through the Monaro Highway bushland and past the Snowy Mountains.

Fuelled by Hamish and Andy and true crime podcasts, it’s a trip Kezie Apps has made from home to the big smoke countless times across her 12-year rugby league career.

Once March rolls around every season she’s living like a nomad, clothes and gear packed into her car, sleeping on teammates couches in Sydney or hotels or rentals organised by NSWRL, or the Jillaroos, or the Wests Tigers.

She’s 34, and closer to the end than the beginning, but she’s not tired.

A recently signed extension with the Tigers until the end of 2029 makes her the longest contracted player in the NRLW, with teammate Sarah Togatuki and Shanice Parker at Newcastle close behind.

Apps is a key player for NSW. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

“The harder it is for me, the more motivated I am,” she says ahead of Thursday night’s State of Origin finisher in Newcastle.

“I remember coming through and people were like, ‘Oh, why are you driving from Bega to Helensburgh or to Sydney just to play a game of football and make training?

“I’m like, well, because I love it and that’s what I want to do.

“It doesn’t make sense to everybody else. But for me, it’s what I have to do to be able to play the game that I love. And I feel like even now, it is difficult to travel, to train or whatever it might be, but it just makes me so much more grateful and appreciative that I get to do and live both those worlds, to live in Bega as well as play up here, but also the hard work that I have put into it.

“And when I get the reward and making the team or whatever it is, it just makes me so much more proud that all that hard work does pay off.”

BIG CAREER

Thursday night will be Apps’ 17th game in the sky blue jersey for NSW, including the four years she played the Interstate Challenge before it was rebranded as Origin in 2018.

Her first season was 2014, and they played in men’s jerseys at Leichhardt Oval.

Laurie Daley presented her jersey that year. The only crowd was their families.

Fast forward to this year, women’s State of Origin has broken attendance records and game one was watched by two million people on Channel 9.

The more support they received, the better they played. And the bigger the gam grew.

The next step is professionalism, which is tipped to happen in 2028.

Just in time for Apps’ last two seasons on the paddock.

Tigers captains Api Koroisau and Apps. Picture: Wests Tigers

“When the girls are able to train in that full time professional system, then the game’s just going to go to another level,” she says.

“You’ve seen the more our game grows, the better our girls become because we spend more time together, more time under great coaches and strength and conditioning coaches who’ve got us for a longer period.

“Once we get to that full time position and we’re able to do this as our job and not have to worry about juggling work and family and everything else that comes with life, you can just fully focus on being a professional athlete, even though the girls do such a great job at it right now with the juggling and still living a professional life, but not actually being rewarded for it.

“It’s just such a credit to all the girls who really want to take the game to the next level and who really are putting the hard yards now for the future generations to reap the rewards for it.”

TIMES ARE CHANGING

NSW teammate Keeley Davis came through the Tarsha Gale Cup system, made her NRLW debut with the Dragons in 2018 and now coaches the under-19s Sydney Roosters team.

At only 24 she’s one of the most experienced players in the NRLW.

“It was crazy. It was so different. But I remember it feeling so professional,” she says of her early days playing Tarsha Gale Cup.

“We had three training days a week, but the games were nine-a-side and nine minute halves. And it was a drop goal for a conversion.

“They had this rule that if you took the drop goal, you have to get subbed. I think I was the only person who could dropkick so I was taking drop goals, running off the sideline to halfway, and then one girl would go in and I’d swap back on.

“Just crazy. Unlimited interchange.

“But it was all in the hopes to get girls into the game and it did that.

So many girls joined because it was nine-a-side, easier to get in, and now I look at the competition Tarsha Gale is, it’s so well ran, so developed. I’m so passionate about it.”

The experience fuelled her passion to give back to the game, and one day she hopes to be an NRLW coach.

While the game is part-time, she’s able to juggle both and develop her coaching skills on the job.

Blues star Keeley Davis. Picture: NRL Photos

At the moment, NRLW runs from April to October, and through the season training is held in the afternoon so players can work through the day.

Once it turns professional that ends.

“The biggest change that we all speak about all the time, probably the morning trainings once the game goes professional,” Davis says.

“We are such morning people.

“If we’re doing our morning sessions, we just go get it done in the morning. So it would be awesome to do that and then get the downtime. After to chill, get coffees, things like that.

“It’s a little bit trivial, but we speak about it and we’re like, oh, I’d be glad to train in the morning and then we can chill together and hang out.

“But it’s actually at a really special spot at the moment. I think so many girls are really grateful for where it is.

“Change will come at some point and it will be awesome when it’s there. But for now, I’m really enjoying where it’s at and I’m super grateful that we get where we are right now.”

Originally published as NRLW and Blues star Kezie Apps on her commute from Bega to Sydney to play rugby league