Patrick Dangerfield has heaped praise on Steven Motlop, who played a key role in the Cats' brilliant semi-final win over the Swans at the MCG on Friday night.

Motlop silenced his doubters by finishing with 23 disposals, six tackles and a goal as Geelong ran out 59-point winners and advanced to a preliminary final clash with the Crows at the Adelaide Oval.

"He’ll have games where he doesn’t have the possession and reward and externally the criticism will come, but he is one of our best game-day runners," Dangerfield said on Crunch Time on SEN on Saturday.

"He’s up there with Mark Blicavs.

"We obviously have our GPS results that we post on the board and Steve’s are always on top of the scale.

"It’s high intensity work and it’s big kilometres and that is bloody hard to do to always reward yourself with possession.”

"Unfortunately the reward doesn’t always come ... that’s part and parcel of playing that half-forward role.

"Externally people say Steven Motlop has only had 15 possessions, but he has run 15 kilometres and opened up space for others to be dangerous.

"It’s a sacrificial role that he embraces every week and it was great to see him get a reward [on Friday] night.”

Motlop's intensity has been questioned at times, but Dangerfield was keen to paint a very different picture of the Cats' No. 32.

“He has a huge hunger to win and to be great and that is what I love about Steve,” he said.

“I think his leadership this year has really increased, his direction with the younger players and the ability to speak up at meetings.

“He just understands the game. When he speaks, it makes sense.

"When his performances have been poor, he’s still been vocal in voicing his opinion on how to improve. I think that’s a sign of a good player.”