Carlton's long AFL finals drought appears all but over after the Blues upset Geelong on Friday night with a runaway 35-point victory at the MCG.

The 14.13 (97) to 8.14 (62) win was the Blues' fifth in six matches, leaving them needing just one more victory from their last three games to be certain of tasting September action for the first time since 2001.

The game was in the balance heading into the last quarter, at which stage Carlton led by 11 points.

But they outscored the Cats 4.3 to 0.3 in the final term, with spearhead Brendan Fevola kicking the last two goals of the match to cap the victory.

It broke a run of five straight losses by Carlton against Geelong, all of them by big margins.

Much was made before the match of the defenders the Cats were missing through injury - most notably Matthew Scarlett and Harry Taylor - and the problems they might have finding a match-up for Fevola.

While Fevola was more than a handful for opponent Tom Lonergan and could have caused more damage than the 4.4 he managed, the key was the Blues' control in an area that is normally Geelong's greatest strength, the midfield.

Captain Chris Judd was superb for Carlton, shrugging the constant attention of Cats tagger Cameron Ling to regularly win the ball from the packs and grow in influence as the game wore on.

But he was far from a lone hand, with young gun midfielder Bryce Gibbs also having an excellent game, as did Marc Murphy, who added two goals to his 24 possessions.

Wingman Kade Simpson also gave his side plenty of drive, as well as kicking three goals.

Geelong started in a blaze, kicking two goals in the opening four minutes.

But from then on, Carlton controlled the game in general play and probably deserved to build a bigger lead in the game earlier than they did.

While they led by seven points at the first change, the Cats hit back with the first two goals of the second quarter and it was only two Blues' majors in the dying minutes of the first half that gave them a 13-point buffer.

After a see-sawing third term, Geelong were still in touch until midway through the final quarter and could have closed the gap to 10 points at the 12-minute mark of the term, but a Shannon Byrnes goal was disallowed when the ball was incorrectly ruled to have gone out of bounds.

Three minutes later, Carlton tagger Aaron Joseph capped a solid night blanketing Geelong star Gary Ablett with a 50m goal to stretch the lead to 23 points, before Fevola's two late majors provided the icing.

Carlton coach Brett Ratten said his side still could not afford to start thinking about finals, but took a lot out of the win.

He praised the roles played by Joseph on Ablett and Jordan Russell on Cats forward Steve Johnson and the midfield combination.

"The midfield probably not trying to work as individuals but really work as a collective group, I think we got a real bang for our buck in that regard and I think a lot of the blokes got a fair bit of the ball and really worked well together," Ratten said.

Cats coach Mark Thompson said his side was disappointing in many aspects, particularly their failure to share the ball around enough or lay enough tackles.

"It wasn't one of those Geelong-like games, it didn't look like a Geelong game that we've become accustomed to and that's probably the most disappointing," he said.

But he said there was no cause for panic.

"It's only one week, we play next week, we play in eight days against Sydney, we're going to try to play better," he said.

Thompson said Johnson, who has been affected by a hip injury, had been an uncertain starter and it had turned out to be the wrong decision to field him.

The Cats were hit by fresh injuries to defenders Darren Milburn and David Wojcinski, who both hurt ankles.

But on a brighter note Thompson said Scarlett, Taylor and James Kelly were set to return against the Swans.

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