North Melbourne speedster Daniel Wells says Geelong’s reluctance to tag veteran Brent Harvey played into North’s hands as they scored an upset 10-point AFL win.

Tenth-placed North Melbourne (8-10) claimed their eighth win of the season on Friday night at Etihad Stadium in their round-19 clash with the third-placed Geelong as the 35-year-old Harvey ran riot, gathering a game-high 37 disposals.

Harvey had 24 touches in the first half before spending part of the third quarter engaging in wrestling matches with Geelong tagger Taylor Hunt.

Wells was a big contributor with four goals and 18 telling possessions including 15 kicks.

North were surprised the Cats didn’t opt to tag four-time All-Australian Harvey for the entire game, Wells said.

“Yeah a little bit (surprised),” Wells told Fox Footy’s On The Couch program on Monday night.

“He (Harvey) is such a damaging player. When he kicks the ball inside 50 we pretty much mark it most times.

“Drew Petrie’s one of his favourites to kick to and he’s quite creative off half-back and running through the midfield.

“I was happy to get the tag and happy for him (Harvey) to run amok.”

Wells, 28, was equal-club champion at North in 2011 and for the fourth consecutive season he’s averaging 20-plus disposals.

The West Australian admits the pressure of being the 2002 No.2 draft pick and injuries early in his career weighed him down.

“When I first came in I had high wraps to do some pretty good things,” the 208-game veteran said.

“The pressure gets to you a little bit.

“You do get sucked in with the media but you realise it’s part of the game.

“The expectations that are on you as a high draft pick can take its toll.

“When you’re a high draft pick, your team didn’t do that well that year and it’s at a stage where it needs to rebuild.”

Wells admits he didn’t work hard enough to break tags earlier in his career.

“Probably early days probably not. I’ve learnt over the last couple of years how to take care of taggers or try my best anyway,” he said.