GEELONG coach Chris Scott says there was little more he could do than cross his fingers and hope his side found its radar during the wasteful first half of its win over Adelaide on Friday night.

But he was satisfied with the performance on the whole, as the Cats stuck to their task and eventually kicked away to a 26-point win at Adelaide Oval.

Geelong kicked 5.13 to half-time and finished with 11.20.

Five talking points: Adelaide v Geelong

“When you’re missing goals, there’s not much you can do to influence that,’’ Scott said post-match.

“Especially when you’re not taking a lot of wide shots. We didn’t think that we were (taking many wide shots) in the coaches box. I’m happy to be proven wrong.

“I know we had a couple of wide shots, but most of the ones we missed, particularly early, were really gettable…overall our game was pretty solid.”

Statistically, the Cats only won the contested ball by two, and the stoppage count was also tight.

But their clearances were more telling, thanks largely to the work of Cameron Guthrie (36 disposals) and dominant ruckman Zac Smith, and it led to a sizeable advantage on the outside.

It eventually proved the difference as Geelong cleared out late in the match.

“When the ball got out into space, I think we were pretty good,’’ Scott said.

“When the clearances are pretty close and you dominate the inside-50 count by so much, that’s probably an indication that your other things are going pretty well.”

Patrick Dangerfield finished the night with 33 touches in his return to  Oval, but didn’t have a massive influence.

However, Scott was full of praise for the way his star recruit approached the match and handled the massive build-up.

“I thought he handled the lead-up beautifully,’ Scott said.

“As expected, he didn’t shy away from anything, and he stood up when it counted. I didn’t think it was his best game. It will take me a little while to analyse it, but clearly he had a lot of the ball.

“He probably didn’t break out into space as much as he can, but we’ve got a pretty high standard for him, don’t we.”

The Cats were on the wrong end of a 26-14 free kick count, a similar disparity to the one which sparked controversy in the Crows-Bulldogs game last week.

Scott said he had no issue with the performance of the men in white.

“We’re a poor free kick differential team. We were worst in the competition going into the game, so I suspect we’ll be worst by a long way coming out. We’ll get clarity and we’ll work on our technique.”