GEELONG is facing a nervous wait on the fitness of a very sore skipper Patrick Dangerfield, who finished the Cats' 20-point win over Melbourne on the bench.

Speaking to both the Seven Network and Fox Footy post-match, Dangerfield said his injury issues included his adductor – which he appeared to receive treatment for – and a knock to his shin which bled into his calf.

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When Dangerfield returned to the field in the third term, he stayed close to goal and was unable to hit top speed.

Coach Chris Scott said the issue was also related to his hip.

"He had a little bit of calf tightness, but the biggest issue that was related to us was the hip. You might have seen him fall forward (in a tackle) and it jarred his hip a bit," Scott said.

"He looked too sore, in my view, to keep him out there, and we tried to keep him off, but he just ran back on the ground, which you know, he's the boss.

"Too early for me (to tell if he'll play next week) – every now and then I speculate, but when I do it's generally a mistake."

After a slow start, Geelong was able to turn the tables with a seven-goal second term, and was able to kick into a higher gear, which Melbourne couldn't match.

"I thought we were just comprehensively outplayed early in the game, and it looked bad to be honest. If you drew up what do they want versus what do we want, I would have said they basically had everything they wanted and we couldn't get the game on our terms," Scott said.

"Sometimes the look and feel of the game isn't reflected on the scoreboard. I think it was four goals to two, and it felt like 10 goals to two. They missed some shots and obviously they would be disappointed they didn't capitalise on their dominance.

"In that context, it's very hard in the modern game to change that, especially when some of the levers we normally have to pull weren't in the team, (so) it did need to depend on changing the way we played rather than positional moves.

"We would never go all-out attack versus all-out attack, but we did feel if we were a bit more aggressive in the way we defended some of their ball movement it might give us some chances back the other way. But that's risky, you've got to be quite assertive in the way you play."

Melbourne coach Steven King rued his team's disposal and decision-making, saying it wasn't up to the standards set throughout the season.

"I think it was 101 points we gave them from turnover, so it was hard to get any flow in the game when we hand them that much ascendancy and roll out the red carpet the other way," King said.

"In a game of footy, the style we want to play, I know there's risks associated with that but a few of them tonight – I'm not sure if it was Geelong's pressure at times, but some of our decisions and execution was pretty poor from a fundamental perspective.

"We scored 63 points ourselves from turnover, 36 from stoppage, got our kick-in goals. We almost got to 100 points, and I know there's a risk there associated with risk versus reward, but there were just some head-scratching decisions and execution that we haven't really seen too much of this year.

"You always understand Geelong were going to pressure and compete really strongly, which they did, and you tip your cap when a team comes out heightened and pressures you in those situations, but I just thought there were a few who went away from some method we've been working on."

King said the Demons attempted to break the strong Oisin Mullin tag on Kozzie Pickett by moving the livewire into attack, but that brought its own complications.

"We did for a little bit, but that sort of gave them an extra number at stoppage as well. That actually gave them the spare behind the footy and we couldn't stop them marking the ball, so we went back," he said.

"We tried a couple of things that we had planned, but again, when we don't use the ball well it's really hard for Koz to get into the flow of the game and us to use our numbers, and probably give him a bit of nourishment with ball in hand. In a game, when you do use the ball so poorly, there's only so many times you can break your own hearts.

"I was really proud of the way our boys continued to fight for four quarters and in some disappointing circumstances, where you do scratch your head around the method, we continued to fight right to the death.