The Cats belted the Demons at a cold and rainy MCG on Friday night, winning by 116 points – not quite the 127-point record margin established a decade ago, but enough to increase their percentage to a ridiculous 160.28, a boost of nearly seven per cent, and a margin of nearly 35 per cent over next-best Hawthorn in third place.
Much as coach Mark Thompson had in his media conference minutes earlier, forward Ryan Gamble was preaching the virtues of playing your own game, doing your own thing, irrespective of the opposition.
"It was a strange game in a way," Gamble admitted. "We came out from the start and did what we wanted to do, and the end result was what we were looking for.
"We always want to play the way we play, no matter if it's in the wet or not, and I think we did that tonight.
"It's always a lot tougher with the skills in the wet, but we can still get our structures right and set up properly, and we did that tonight and came away with a win."
The focus on doing the Cats thing was evident in the surprise the 20-year-old showed when asked about keeping the Demons scoreless in the first term.
"Did we do that? That's all right. I didn't realise.
"We take every game the same, as if we're playing Hawthorn or the Bulldogs; it doesn't matter if we're playing a team below us, we've still got to come out and play the way we want to play."
The Cats have the perfect tune up for the finals in the next couple of weeks, taking on the Sydney Swans and then North Melbourne.
"It's always good to play those sort of teams. They're big-bodied teams, both of them are, and we're really looking forward to the challenge."
