St George Illawarra’s Keeley Davis’ made the tackle of the year on Dragons teammate Kezie Apps

Keeley Davis and Kezie Apps are now St George Illawarra teammates but last month Davis made one of the best try-saving tackles on Apps anyone will ever see.

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When you think big-tackle moments, Scott Sattler’s covering effort to bring down Todd Byrne in the 2003 grand final looms into view. Or in recent weeks, Manly’s Jorge Taufua near-homicide of Melbourne’s Cameron Munster.

You can now add Keeley Davis to that highlights reel.

Two weeks ago, in the Illawarra women’s grand final, Davis pulled off arguably the greatest tackle the competition has seen just seconds before the halftime siren. Davis’s Corrimal side was leading 12-4 when Helensburgh’s Kezie Apps burst through the line.

Apps — a superstar of the women’s game — looked destined to score after breaking through three tacklers inside her own 20 metres, bursting past the fullback and over the halfway line.

As she zeroed in on the tryline, Davis came galloping from the clouds, having never given up the chase, to bring her down just metres from the tryline.

Davis will line up for the Dragons on Sunday. Picture by Toby Zerna.

Davis said she can’t remember too much about what she was thinking, but she has seen the tackle plenty of times since.

“In game situations you just do whatever,” Davis said. “Our team had defended really hard for sets and sets. We kept knocking it on and couldn’t complete a set. We finally competed a set and had them in good territory.

“Kezie made a break. I just remember thinking as soon as she made the break I was going to get her.

“I didn’t want her to turn around and palm me, I knew she would do that. I wanted to make sure I had her. I ran with her for a bit longer and luckily I did when I look back at the footage now.

“We were both so tired. We’d been going so hard the whole game. We were dead for five minutes.”

The Corrimal dummy half made one of the plays of the year. Picture by Toby Zerna.

Corrimal went on to win the grand final 18-8. Fifteen days later, Davis and Apps are preparing to line up alongside each other for St George Illawarra against Brisbane in the opening round of the NRLW at Bankwest Stadium.

Davis hasn’t brought up the play with her Dragons skipper.

“I’m sure other people have said things to her,” Davis said. “I will definitely give it to her if I chase her down again at training.”

Davis was the youngest Jillaroo last year when she made her Test debut at just 18. The half/hooker only started playing rugby league in 2017 and made a Country representative team after just one game.

“I was playing Rugby Sevens at the time and one of my friends just asked me to come fill in for their league team one day because they were short,” Davis said. “I ended up making a representative team and just loved it from there.”

The Dragons are preparing to face last year’s premiers the Broncos with a completely different mindset to last season. Their preparation was rushed and disjointed in the inaugural season but Davis said they had taken a far different approach this time around.

“We’ve had a lot more time to train this year,” Davis said. “At training sessions we are all about training. Last year we were stopping sessions to do paperwork and other things. We were a step behind.

“We had one day at the start of the season to get all that stuff sorted, so when it was time to train, we trained.”

Originally published as St George Illawarra’s Keeley Davis’ made the tackle of the year on Dragons teammate Kezie Apps