An explosive five minutes in the third quarter spurred Geelong into life and the semi-final of the AFL pre-season cup at the expense of the Kangaroos in Cairns.

The Cats won 1.10.17 (86) to 1.8.3 (60) and will now play either Fremantle or Collingwood in the semi-final of the NAB Cup on Saturday night.

An upset looked to be on the cards during the first half when the Kangaroos had the better of the play in the first term and then held out during a stagnant second quarter to go into the long break ahead by three points.

And when Daniel Pratt opened the third quarter scoring with a super goal the Kangaroos pushed their noses further in front with a ten point lead.

Going behind stung the Cats and they drew on their considerable strike power and experience to fight back.

In the space of five minutes Geelong had engineered a 21 point turnaround.

A left foot snap to Darren Milburn was followed from the restart by a huge and classy on-the-run super goal to the Cats' Shannon Byrnes.

Paul Koulouriotis followed it up with another major and momentum had well and truly swung back to Geelong.

The Kangaroos tried to rally through Sav Rocca who kicked two in a row but that was it for the `Roos.

Geelong ran away with the game in the last as Cameron Ling and Gary Ablett started making serious inroads into the `Roos defence.

The Cats powered home, goals to Pratt and Matthew Spencer the final nails in the Kangaroos' coffin.

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