Chris Scott the coach was almost as impressed that the Cats banged on 24 majors of their own in a record 133-point triumph that lifted them back into the top eight at Port Adelaide's expense, improving their percentage by 8.5 in the process.

The Cats' finals' destiny is now in their own hands, with another home victory over hapless Gold Coast next weekend almost certainly seeing them finish in seventh or eighth spot.

"I feel pretty good that after quarter-time obviously we played the type of footy that we had been talking about playing and I still stand by the fact that the aim for us is to build towards playing our best footy," Scott told reporters.

"I think we showed a fair bit of that today

"Obviously the opposition has got some challenges so you need to keep it in perspective a bit but it's good, it gives us a chance.

"I am pretty 'defence-first' in my attitude and we are as a coaching group and we have been as a club for a long time so I think we will lean towards the defensive side (as being the most pleasing).

"But the best teams don't differentiate too much, they need to attack well and defend well."

At the conclusion of Saturday's match there was some chance that Geelong could still finish the home and away season as high as sixth, although that pretty much disappeared when Sydney upset GWS a couple of hours later.

"We're in a group of teams in five, six or seven spots outside the top two that at their best I think are a pretty good chance against the best teams," said Scott.

"That's clearly based on ladder positions - those teams haven't been consistent enough to have much room to move.

"We're not a perfect team by any stretch of the imagination, we have a lot of inexperience in our team and almost to a man those guys are actually doing the job."

Australian Associated Press