Geelong recorded its fourth straight win with a 10-point victory against Collingwood in Round 11 at the MCG on Saturday.

Here are some of the statistics that matter from the Sir Doug Nicholls Round clash, presented by Deakin’s Centre for Sport Research.

Indigenous Cats Superb 

In a round which celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and their contribution to Australian Football it was fitting to see Brandan Parfitt and Quinton Narkle shine at the MCG on Saturday afternoon.

In the absence of Patrick Dangerfield, Mitch Duncan, Cameron Guthrie and Mark Blicavs, the Cats needed others to step up and it was Parfitt and Narkle who did exactly that amassing 54 disposals and 19 ground ball gets between them to be named in Geelong’s best.

“We are really happy with the way those two guys are going,” coach Chris Scott said post-match.

“Parfitt has become one of our really important players over a decent period of time now and Narkle in a way has been starved of opportunity not necessarily through any fault of his own.

“If we go back even 12 months, he was in our best team up until Round 7 or 8 I am going to say and then he did a significant hamstring and unfortunately for him he just couldn’t get back in our team.”

“We’ve got some good players to come back in the next week or two so we are going to be a little bit squeezed at the selection table, but Narkle in particular is doing a really good job and I think would be hard to displace.”

Tom Turns It On

Tom Hawkins looked like he was 22 instead of 32 with his ability to twist and turn through traffic and either hit the scoreboard himself or set his teammates up in the win against the Pies.

Hawkins finished with a game-high three goals and 12 score involvements from 21 disposals to be ranked the number one player on the ground come the final siren.

Cats Enter Bye Entrenched Inside Top Four

Geelong heads into the bye with eight wins and just three loses to its name. Four points better than they were at the same point in the season last year.

“Our guys have done really well to get to the buy 8 and 3, it’s nice to be in contention again and now the second half of the year is in our destiny or in our hands.”

Scott is proud of his team but knows there’s still plenty of hard work including a tough run of games against Port Adelaide, the Western Bulldogs and Brisbane straight after the bye.

“A combination of proud of our players for getting to this point again but also not getting ahead of ourselves.”

Cats Clean Sheet

Geelong held Collingwood goalless in a first half at the MCG for the first time since 2005.

Led by Tom Stewart who was superb in the opening half with four intercepts, two contested marks and nine disposals at 100% efficiency.

Jake Kolodjashnij was also important for the Cats. In his second game back from an MCL injury the Tasmanian was very good at coming off his man to help out his teammates with an equal game-high five marks to half time.

It was a collective effort though with the pressure across the ground helping keep the Pies to just seven behinds in the first two quarters of footy.