Evado Studios Women’s Match Report: Machine Gun Kelli Tears Melbourne City Apart at Cross Keys
There are afternoons in football where you watch someone play and think, yeah, she’s good. Then there are afternoons where you watch someone play and wonder if the opposition checked the scouting report, because surely nobody would let this happen on purpose.
Saturday at Cross Keys Reserve was the second kind. Kelli McGroarty scored four goals. Four. Melbourne City never stood a chance.
Essendon Royals 5-1 Melbourne City. Round 8. The first women’s home match at Cross Keys Reserve in 2026, and McGroarty made sure nobody forgot it.
It took four minutes. Four minutes for the American forward to collect the ball roughly 25 yards out, look up, and drive a right-footed strike past the City keeper. Not from the edge of the box. From beyond it. The sort of hit that sends a message to everyone in the ground: today is going to be different.
The Royals were relentless. Mikaela Jurcic, captaining from the back, was pinging long diagonals with the accuracy of someone who’d been doing it in her sleep. One of those passes, in the 30th minute, found McGroarty in behind. She controlled on the run, shrugged off a defender, and slotted across goal into the side netting. 2-0. Clinical.
Credit to Melbourne City, and specifically to Mary Brown, who produced one of the goals of the round in the 36th minute. A curling effort from distance that sailed over Sophie Dehne and nestled in the top corner. Individual brilliance. 2-1 at the break, and suddenly there was a contest.
That lasted about seven minutes into the second half.
McGroarty completed her hat-trick in the 52nd minute, reacting quickest to a loose ball in a goalmouth scramble and poking home from close range. Not pretty. Didn’t need to be. The kind of goal that strikers who score 20 a season get because they want it more than anyone else in the six-yard box.
Then, in the 64th minute, a mistimed challenge from Liliana Lamaj gave the Royals a penalty. McGroarty stepped up, sent the keeper the wrong way, and tucked it into the bottom corner. Four goals. Machine Gun Kelli had emptied the clip.
The conditions at Cross Keys played their part. The moisture on the surface made the pitch slippery underfoot, contributing to defensive miscues and messy moments in both boxes. Wind picked up in the second half. Neither bothered the Royals.
Emma Langley, on as a substitute in the 56th minute, capped it off in the 77th. Bronte Peel drove down the right wing and delivered a low ball across the face of goal. Langley timed her run to the back post and tapped in. 5-1. Game, set, match.
McGroarty was given a standing ovation when she came off in the 85th minute. Ten goals in seven matches this season. Right on the heels of Bulleen’s Maja Markovski in the Golden Boot race, and playing with the confidence of someone who knows she’s the most dangerous striker on the pitch every time she walks onto it.
But this wasn’t a one-woman show. Jurcic’s distribution was the platform. Ava Groba’s energy before her substitution set the pressing tone. Isabella Sewards and Bronte Peel gave the Royals width that City couldn’t handle. Akeisha Sandhu returned from suspension and slotted back in seamlessly. Ayano Koizumi pulled strings. The whole squad was at it.
Three wins on the bounce now. Avondale, Keilor Park, Melbourne City. Fifteen points from eight rounds and climbing the table. The early-season losses to Boroondara, Alamein and Bulleen feel like a long time ago.
Cross Keys Reserve finally hosted the women this season, and they put on a performance worthy of the occasion. If this is what the Royals look like when they’re rolling, the rest of the league should be paying attention.