GEELONG defender Jed Bews says a shared moment of understanding between the Cats defenders helped steady the ship against North Melbourne on Saturday.

Bews told K rock Football that the Cats back six knew what had to be done when the Kangaroos whittled Geelong’s lead down to just 10 points early in the last term.

“We looked around and thought we’ve got to lock down here. We can’t let anything go through, anything easy. We had to back the boys in the middle,” he said.

 “We knew it was going to come down very tight in the last quarter. We knew they were going to come and they did, and we withheld it pretty well.

“We were getting in good spots as defenders, the midfielders were just going to work in the middle and the forwards put on some really good pressure. Everything just kind of clicked and it really opened up.”

Bews believes the Cats’ early season success in defence has come down to a widely-shared trust between players.

“The big thing that we want to do is just play together, we don’t want to leave each other hanging,” he said.

“That builds trust and you do that week in week out and we’ve done it for a few weeks now, so we build that trust with each other. We just know what each other is going to do.”

Geelong’s miserly defence has been a surprise packet this year given the absence of Lachie Henderson and Harry Taylor for much of the season, and Bews credits some of the Cats’ young stars for much of that.

Second-year Cat Jack Henry is one of those young defenders.

“He just backs himself. He hasn’t come in and been quiet, his voice is out there,” Bews said.

“He’s getting himself in good positions and when he gets there he’s just having a crack. That’s all we can ask and he’s playing bloody good footy so it’s good to watch.”