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
Hanks collected eight disposals and Paxman seven in the opening term as the Suns failed to cash in on edging their opponents 10-9 in the inside-50 count.<\/p>\n
Gold Coast, after losing Claudia Whitfort to a hamstring injury, slipped further behind early in the second stanza when Demons stalwart Tayla Harris converted a close-range set shot after a dubious in-the-back free kick.<\/p>\n
Two minutes later, Georgia Gall crumbed a goal-line marking contest and snapped accurately.<\/p>\n
And when Alyssa Bannan found space and goaled after a quick wind-assisted counter-attack, the Demons stretched their lead to 38 points at half-time, 6.6 to 0.4.<\/p>\n
Melbourne further increased their advantage when Paxman slotted her second major in the opening minutes of the third term, then led 7.10 to 0.6 at three-quarter time.<\/p>\n
The Demons then kicked six more goals with the wind while keeping the Suns scoreless in the final term.<\/p>\n
North Melbourne overcome shock slow start to power past Dons<\/p>\n
The Kangaroos had to power past the Bombers after a sluggish start. (Getty Images: Graham Denholm)<\/p>\n
North Melbourne have overcome a scoreless first quarter to defeat Essendon by 30 points and keep their AFLW winning streak alive.<\/p>\n
The reigning premiers failed to notch a single point in the opening term, before roaring back to life en route to a 10.11 (71) to 6.5 (41) victory at Windy Hill on Friday.<\/p>\n
The undefeated Kangaroos extended their streak to 19 straight wins after being held scoreless in an opening quarter for the first time in five seasons.<\/p>\n
Essendon, who reduced the deficit to four points late in the third quarter, have now lost their past four games after starting the season with three straight wins.<\/p>\n
Star ball-winner Ash Riddell was busy again for the Kangaroos, after her record-breaking 44 disposal effort in last week’s win over Carlton.<\/p>\n
Riddell finished with one goal, 28 disposals and five clearances against Essendon’s star midfield duo Maddy Prespakis (26 disposals) and Georgia Nanscawen (22).<\/p>\n
Rising Irish star Blaithin Bogue and Kate Shierlaw each kicked two goals for the visitors, as did Essendon forward Sophie Alexander.<\/p>\n
North Melbourne were without Erika O’Shea (managed), who was a late out.<\/p>\n
Essendon needed less than 30 seconds to hit the scoreboard, with Prespakis bursting from the centre bounce to set up co-captain Bonnie Toogood for the opener.<\/p>\n
But Toogood was denied, with star North defender Emma Kearney claiming the goal was touched \u2014 which was later confirmed by the smart-ball technology.<\/p>\n
Essendon were eventually rewarded for their high-pressure efforts, slamming through three straight goals to build a 20-point lead.<\/p>\n
After suffering their biggest ever quarter-time deficit in their AFLW history, North Melbourne kicked 5.5 to one behind in an explosive second quarter.<\/p>\n
The visitors struggled to take their chances in the third quarter, allowing Essendon to remain in touch after two goals from Georgia Gee and Holly Ridewood.<\/p>\n
But the Bombers couldn’t go toe-to-toe with the Kangaroos as fatigue set in, Darren Crocker’s side easily outclassing the hosts for victory.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne stalwart Tyla Hanks has produced a dominant display in an 87-point belting of Gold Coast in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25912,64,63,6856,10990,24706,10993,3028,10992,2485,9130,111097,647,7804,6855,111098,85,9391,111096,698],"class_list":["post-169937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aflw","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carlton","tag-collingwood","tag-demons","tag-dockers","tag-essendon","tag-fremantle","tag-gold-coast","tag-gold-coast-suns","tag-megan-fitzsimon","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-demons","tag-north-melbourne","tag-paxy-paxman","tag-sports","tag-suns","tag-tyla-hanks","tag-western-bulldogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169937","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=169937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}