JAMES Harmes says he will be “no worries” to play against the Gold Coast Suns at the MCG on Sunday.

Harmes remarkably took his place in the side against the Adelaide Crows at Adelaide Oval last Saturday night, after breaking his hand against Geelong at the Cattery in round 18.

The hard-at-it utility had surgery on the Monday, two days following Melbourne’s kick-after-the-siren loss to Geelong on July 21, and then took his place against the Crows seven days later.

It was an incredible effort by Harmes, who also played two of his best matches of the season.

He kept Geelong captain Joel Selwood to seven touches in the first half, before keeping Brownlow medallist Patrick Dangerfield to eight disposals in the second half.

Against the Crows last round, he held Rory Sloane in the first half.

Harmes said he felt his game was in a good place at the moment and he was confident of his hand being OK to play this weekend.

“It’s good trying to shut down a player and then trying to win the ball,” he told Melbourne Media.

“With Vines (Jack Viney) out injured, someone had to step-up and take the responsibility of playing on the best opposition players, so I loved playing that role. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep playing it, but we’ll see how it goes.

“In terms of the hand, in the last couple of days I haven’t done too much. I’ve trained pretty lightly, because it was a little bit swollen at the start of the week, so we’re just trying to get the swelling out. But I’m all good to go this week.”

Although he ended up playing against the Crows, Harmes acknowledged it was “touch and go” right up until game day.

“I called up the surgeon a few days after the operation and he said it wasn’t wise for me to play, in case of infection,” he said.

“I then sat down with [club doctor] Zee [Arian] and [head physiotherapist] Sammy Pietsch, and we got a bit of a plan together and made a guard to the wound. We didn’t do anything all week until Friday and then I trained in Adelaide. I felt pretty good, but it blew up after training and I went back to icing it up at night.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d get up, but I felt good in the warm-up and as soon as the game started, it didn’t really faze me too much, until the last quarter when it got a bit sore.

“Other than that, it wasn’t too painful, because they put a rod in there. There was no chance of it breaking again, but there was a small chance of infection with the wound.

“Now, it’s all feeling good and I’ll be right to go this weekend.”