GEELONG further enhanced its reputation and percentage, and jumped to second place on the ladder last night after a 10-goal victory over St Kilda that extended the Cats' winning streak to five matches.

But Geelong coach Mark Thompson was quick to defuse the hype after the match, saying the Cats had been in similar rich veins of form in recent seasons, only to go off the boil and miss out on playing the grand final.

He said they needed to remain focused on travelling to Adelaide for the second time in three weeks when they take on the Crows on Sunday afternoon.

After describing the team's third quarter as "quite sensational", Thompson instantly added a rider: "I look at today's game and I know we've won five in a row, but I can see a lot that we still need to improve.

"What keeps us going is that we've been in this situation before, and we've collapsed and crushed, and as quick as you can go up you can go down.

"So we don't want that and that's why we've got to focus on week-to-week outcomes and even quarter-by-quarter, to be honest, because we know our history."

After leading by 36 points at three-quarter-time, Geelong held the Saints goalless in a lamentable final quarter for Ross Lyon's team, and added four goals to its tally in an even team performance.

St Kilda, which welcomed back from injury Jason Gram, Max Hudghton, Raphael Clarke and Leigh Montagna, has only four wins after 10 rounds and remains 13th on the ladder. It lost Leigh Fisher to a hamstring injury last night.

Lyon sat his players down for 20 minutes after the match for what he termed "an open forum", to discuss how the Saints could get their season back on the rails. St Kilda now faces a Kangaroos team on the rebound at Telstra Dome on Sunday.

Geelong midfielder Jimmy Bartel, one of the competition's leading performers this season, was again among the best last night, gathering 31 touches and 12 marks. Only St Kilda's Gram had more of the ball in the twilight match attended by 42,188 people.

Nick Dal Santo, usually one of the best in the Saints' midfield, had only 11 possessions.

The Cats most recently won six games on the trot in the 2004 and 2005 seasons when they also played finals.

Coming off a rousing 56-point away win over Port Adelaide last week, Geelong piled on seven goals to St Kilda's four in the opening term. The margin was 17 points, in Geelong's favour, at half-time. At the last change the Cats were six goals up but didn't add to that tally until the 13th minute in the low-scoring final term.

Saints co-captain Nick Riewoldt could have levelled the scores late in the second term but hit the post with his shot from around 25 metres out on an angle.

Before then, Fraser Gehrig also hit the post, while another one of his shots was touched before it cleared the goal-line.

Cats Brad Ottens and Cameron Mooney scored two late majors before half-time to give their side some breathing space.