Gary Ablett wound back the clock on Saturday at the AFL venue where he regularly produced command performances earlier in his career, inspiring Geelong to a 37-point victory over North Melbourne.
The two teams entered the round-12 encounter at GMHBA Stadium with identical 7-4 win-loss records, but it was Chris Scott’s Cats who looked a class above for much of the day.
Tom Hawkins was the dominant forward on the ground, with 23 disposals, 11 marks and three goals in the 14.12 (96) to 8.11 (59) victory.
But the biggest roar of the day was reserved for Ablett, who iced the game with a fine running goal in the final quarter.
Ablett had battled injury and form issues in the opening couple of months of his second stint at Geelong after a seven-year sabbatical on the Gold Coast.
He turned that around with a best-on-ground performance last weekend away to the Suns and backed it up on Saturday with another excellent display, finishing with a match-high 34 possessions.
With Coleman Medal pacesetter Ben Brown held scoreless by Mark Blicavs and fellow key forward Jarrad Waite missing a second-straight match with a calf strain, the Kangaroos clearly lacked a cutting edge in attack.
The visitors could only manage one goal in each of the first two quarters to trail by 25 points at the long break.
Ben Jacobs had done a superb job limiting Cats skipper Joel Selwood to five disposals.
With Ablett running rampant, North Melbourne coach Brad Scott temporarily switched his best tagger onto the two-time Brownlow medallist shortly before halftime.
Gun midfielder Ben Cunnington stepped up after a quiet first half as the Kangaroos came back into the contest in the third quarter, outscoring Geelong by four goals to three to narrow the margin to 18 points.
Midway through the third term, Geelong lost makeshift defender Aaron Black to a knee injury.
With Selwood finally breaking the shackles, the Cats powered away to a commanding win with a five-goal final quarter, setting up a huge MCG clash on Sunday week against reigning premiers Richmond.
The Kangaroos have the bye in round 13.