Tom De Koning wins sibling battle as Blues belt Cats

Tom and Sam De Koning brought a thousand backyard scraps to the MCG in Carlton's big AFL win over Geelong.

While Tom won their ruck battle and added to his impressive form, little brother Sam never relented and their frequent sibling spats on Friday night made for an entertaining duel.

With Rhys Stanley injured, the Cats moved Sam out of defence and into the ruck to take on his brother.

But Tom dominated, like his team, were too good as the Blues smashed Geelong 21.12 (138) to 11.9 (75).

The Blues ruckman made an immediate statement, wrestling Sam out of the way at a field bounce and then snapping Carlton's first goal.

"I get the theatre around it, but I don't encourage that. I understand it's the by-product of it all, it's a great talking point," Carlton coach Michael Voss said of the theatre and emotion around the brotherly battle.

"In reality, Tom is just so focused on being able to play a certain way.

"He's certainly taken his game to another level. He's getting some great rewards."

Geelong coach Chris Scott said they moved Sam into the ruck to help his form and try something different.

"It was an aggressive move, and not one without risk," he said.

But whatever Geelong tried, they were no match as second-placed Carlton produced their best performance of the season.

Voss and his players often speak publicly of Carlton's "identity" as a team and Friday night was a showcase of what that looks like.

"That's a great way of being able to sum it up in one word," Voss said.

"We've had lots of games where we know what it feels like - and lots of games where we know what it doesn't feel like.

"We've been getting after that pretty hard ... we had a much more balanced profile in our game (against Geelong).

"All the things you want to be able to have, we were able to execute."

But Voss also noted that they must now maintain their impressive form.

"It was a really powerful performance - probably the most powerful we've played for the year," he said.

"We also don't take it for granted - as quickly as it comes, it disappears just as quick. So we'll stay on edge with that."

Another highlight of the win was tagger Alex Cincotta, who went out of the midfield to play a defensive forward role on Cats star Tom Stewart.

"He's a hungry dog and he's desperate to be part of the team. You love coaching those players - they're just prepared to do anything," Voss said of Cincotta.