Chris Scott maintained his unblemished head coaching record but inflicted the first major blemish on John Longmire's, as Geelong beat Sydney by 27 points in Saturday's AFL clash at the SCG.

The Cats improved to 4-0 for the campaign and Sydney slipped to 2-1-1 as Geelong won 11.15 (81) to 7.12 (54) in near constant drizzle.

In the first SCG clash between the teams since the memorable 2005 semi-final, there was to be no dramatic late surge by the Swans, who couldn't find anyone to reproduce Nick Davis's heroics from seven years ago.

The Swans held a nine-point lead at quarter-time after kicking the last three goals of the term, but trailed by 13 at the next two breaks.

Sydney got to within seven points in the final term, but successive goals to Cameron Ling, David Wojcinski and Jason Podsiadly snuffed out their hopes of a third successive come-from-behind win.

The Swans kicked just three goals in the last three quarters as Geelong showed superior execution and ball use in the tricky conditions.

It was Geelong's ninth successive victory over the Swans, who last beat them six years ago.

Sydney's first game of the year at the SCG was blighted by rain throughout the first three quarters.

Geelong kicked 3.4 to 0.2 in the second quarter to take control.

The third quarter was an arm wrestle with Sydney getting within six points at one stage.

Two early final-quarter behinds swelled Geelong's lead to a then match-high 15 points, but a Josh Kennedy goal got Sydney back to within seven.

Wojcinski kicked three goals and Paul Chapman two, with the latter topping Geelong's possession getters with 27 touches.

Kennedy accumulated a match-high 29 possessions for Sydney with Rhyce Shaw notching 27.

Scott said he again marvelled at the strength of character his players had shown.

"The effort was the most pleasing thing by a long way," Scott told reporters.

"We still don't think we're playing brilliant footy, but we played really really tough committed footy against a team that prides themselves on that.

"When it started raining we started fiddling around with the ball more, so at quarter time we tried to address that a little bit and make it a bit more of a genuine contest."

Scott said James Kelly took a knock to his groin, but didn't expect it to be a problem, while Sydney reported no injuries.

Longmire said Sydney lost a little bit of structure after being pleased with his side's early energy and intensity.

"Four of their first six goals were from free kicks which we caused and that stung us a bit and I think we didn't take our chances," Longmire said.

"They got some of those easy goals which sort of released the pressure a little bit."

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