The Demons kicked the first three goals of Friday night’s match, including two to Harris, on the way to a 5.6 (36) to 3.4 (22) victory.<\/p>\n
The early onslaught from Harris set the tone for the match.<\/p>\n
But it was also her ability to crash packs and lay huge tackles that ensured Melbourne gained the physical edge over their opponents.<\/p>\n
Harris finished with 17 disposals, five tackles, 303m gained, one goal assist and two goals in a standout display at both ends of the field.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth McNamara (24 disposals) and Maeve Chaplin (24 disposals, 606m gained) were also huge for Melbourne, while Madison Prespakis led the way for Essendon with a game-high 29 disposals.<\/p>\n
Harris played only one game last season before succumbing to a shoulder injury, and she’s loving being back out on the park, especially with Melbourne (7-1) sitting pretty in second spot.<\/p>\n
“Last season I wasn’t able to play, so it’s a privilege to be out here. It’s heaps of fun playing footy,” Harris told the Seven Network.<\/p>\n
“There were some moments in the game that we can be really proud of from a hunt perspective and the pressure rating, that’s what we chase every week.<\/p>\n
“But there’s obviously room to improve.”<\/p>\n
Essendon slipped to a 3-5 record, leaving their finals hopes on thin ice.<\/p>\n
Alarm bells were ringing early for Essendon after Melbourne kicked two goals in the opening two minutes courtesy of strong marks to Harris and Georgia Gall.<\/p>\n
Harris kicked her second goal midway through the term to make it 19-0, but Essendon’s former rugby star Grace Brooker pulled off a huge tackle to kick her first goal and get the Bombers on the board.<\/p>\n
Melbourne won the inside-50 count 11-2 in the opening quarter, and took four marks inside 50m as Essendon’s defence floundered.<\/p>\n
The Bombers put up more resistance in the second quarter, but Melbourne still entered the half-time break with a 19-point lead.<\/p>\n
Harris was an unstoppable force in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
She cannoned into Essendon’s Amy Gaylor in a front-on collision that hurt both players, and could potentially land Harris in hot water given there was high contact.<\/p>\n
Moments later Harris won a free kick with a huge tackle – only to miss her 30m set shot.<\/p>\n
Melbourne’s lead extended to 25 points early in the final quarter, before Essendon kicked the final two goals of the match to add respectability to the scoreboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Demons kicked the first three goals of Friday night’s match, including two to Harris, on the way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-187631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187631","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=187631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}