NSW Blues’ Isabelle Kelly remains in hospital with throat injury from women’s State of Origin opener

The New South Wales women’s State of Origin side is fuming after match officials allowed play to continue following a serious throat injury that hospitalised co-captain Isabelle Kelly in Thursday’s series opener.

Julia Robinson, the Queensland winger whose elbow hit Kelly’s throat, said the shot was accidental and that her thoughts were with the centre, who has been cleared of a throat fracture but remained in hospital on Friday morning.

The incident occurred as Kelly attempted to tackle Robinson just before half-time of the Maroons’ 18-10 win at CommBank Stadium in Sydney and left the skipper coughing up blood and struggling to breathe.

Blues trainers attended to her as play continued down-field, where Queensland forward Tazmin Gray capitalised on the personnel advantage to score a try to seize the lead for the Maroons.

Referee Adam Gee placed Robinson on report after the try had been scored, but NSW received no penalty and trailed for the remainder of the game.

“If the game was stopped when Izzy went down, Tazmin wouldn’t have scored and we could have got our line set,” Blues winger Jess Sergis said post-match.

Kelly was taken to hospital during the game and NSW coach Kylie Hilder said the incident had rattled her side, which gave up two more tries in the 10 minutes after half-time.

“There was a lot going on in the sheds. An ambulance came in for Izzy,” she said.

“It wasn’t great, she was in a lot of discomfort so there was a fair bit of noise coming as well.”

On Instagram, Kelly wrote she was “feeling very overwhelmed with all the love” she had received.

“Still in ICU at hospital surrounded by the most amazing staff at Westmead, been a scary 12 hours but hopefully head home tomorrow,” she said.

Hilder was miffed as to