IF PITTING yourself against the best is the best way to learn, then Essendon's footballers went home from school yesterday afternoon with heads spinning at the wonders of education. Either that, or feeling as if they'd been slumped over the teacher's desk all afternoon getting the cane.

The lessons to take from this 99-point master class by the game's premier team were many, none more fitting than the truth that you can't grow up before your time.

Geelong sees Essendon for leg speed and raises it a physical strength of body that allowed the Cats to dominate the stoppages. Matthew Knights noted that this was where the gulf between the teams was most evident, even at six-on-six ball-ups around the ground.

The Cats married this edge in power to unbending confidence and a skill level that was largely so clean and crisp it might have been a freshly boxed shirt; the Bombers, meanwhile, slopped around in tattered trackies.

Mark Thompson sniffed at his team's 462 possessions — the second-greatest case of leather-poisoning in history — feeling it suggested overuse. But it also amounted to every man in blue and white touching the ball five times more than those in red and black. And even if the coach thought they flirted at times with playing-circle work, it was the Bombers who were dizzy.

Patrick Ryder on Cam Mooney at centre half-back was the only Don not to lower his colours, while Mark McVeigh was the most obvious of the round-one heroes brought back to earth with a thud, initially as he ran with (or at least behind) Gary Ablett, and then ran around with seemingly no particular purpose.

Essendon's search for an avenue to goal took it to some strange places. Jason Laycock started in the goal square and stood under several long bombs that he should either have marked or might have led to his untimely end in the act of trying. Neither possibility eventuated.

His height was swapped for Jason Winderlich's pace, with no greater impact, so Jobe Watson was sent forward, primarily to take his super-productive marker Cameron Ling away from the ball.

This worked a treat, up to a point — the point where Watson had to take a shot at goal. Twice he beat Ling on the lead, twice he kicked for goal like a man who would rather be in the dentist's chair. When Ling ran him to the other end, and got on the end of another Joel Selwood assist, the wound was duly salted.

By the third quarter, Dustin Fletcher was the target. All the while, the red and black Route One of the past 13 seasons, Matthew Lloyd, could not get near it against Matthew Scarlett, or Harry Taylor when the Cats' first-gamer became bored with beating Adam McPhee. Lloyd battled on and did not deserve the bronx cheers that accompanied his later touches.

Essendon actually seemed more in the game at quarter-time than a 20-point deficit indicated, but the illusion was exposed in the first three minutes of the second, when Ryan Gamble, Joel Corey and Corey Enright all goaled, the latter two from the ubiquitous modern football statistic — the Selwood assist. In this time, the Bombers touched the ball once.

By midway through the third, a single passage of play emphasised how lost Essendon was for answers. A promising build-up through the middle of the ground ended with a Tom Harley interception at centre half-back, and a pinball exchange of passes by hand ferried the ball to Paul Chapman, who turned and saw Jimmy Bartel 50 metres clear at half-forward.

Brownlow medallists are not generally afforded such freedom, but this was against an opponent by now so rattled that conventional practices no longer applied. Bartel goaled, merely one of his 15 telling touches for the term.

Bartel, Ablett, Corey, Ling, Selwood, James Kelly, Matthew Stokes — they were a midfield force that worked in such a blur as to make distinguishing one from the other impossible. By the last quarter they had run the Bombers to a standstill, and the seemingly impossible was happening.

When Mark Blake, who goaled on the run from 50 in the first quarter, sent a second long-range shot spinning towards the target, the crowd held its breath as if expecting to see grass turn to water and the Cats continue to hare across it.

The ball hit the post and they booed their disappointment. Two minutes later, Blake took a towering mark and goaled. For the Cats of 2008, the next miracle may be just around the corner.

GEELONG 4.4 11.9 17.13 22.18 (150) ESSENDON 1.2 3.6 4.10 6.15 (51)

GOALS Geelong: Gamble 3, Bartel 2, Corey 2, Mooney 2, Ablett 2, Stokes 2, Blake 2, West, Selwood, S Johnson, Kelly, Wojcinski, Enright, Ling. Essendon: Stanton, Davey, McPhee, Houli, Hille, Laycock.

BEST Geelong: Bartel, Stokes, Ablett, Kelly, Selwood, Corey, Blake, Ling. Essendon: Ryder, Fletcher, Dyson, Stanton.

UMPIRES: Donlon, Kennedy, Chamberlain.

CROWD: 50,636 at Telstra Dome.

THE UPSHOT It's taken all of two rounds to be reminded that Essendon has some way to go, and the whole competition has its work cut out in pursuit of the reigning premier.

TALKING POINT Geelong's 462 possessions was the second-highest in an AFL match, leaving coach Mark Thompson wondering if his Cats had over-possessed the ball a touch. Everyone else simply wondered if there was any room left for improvement.

HOT AND COLD Mark McVeigh's first two games: untouchable in midfield one week, unable to get a touch the next. But then, that summed up Geelong's on-ballers relative to Essendon's.