THAT Ron Barassi's defection from Melbourne to Carlton at the end of 1964 has been the most commonly employed yardstick says much for the magnitude of Chris Judd's switch, 43 years later, to the same club.

That Carlton fans are singing their club song with the introduction: "Judd-ta-da-da-dah …" tells of the hope one man can bring.

Barassi's move was one of the modern game's seminal events. When he switched to Carlton aged 28, his physical powers were on the wane but his ambition and force of personality were in full cry.

Had Blues' fans known at the outset that he would play only 50 games in the navy blue jumper, they may have worried.

What they got, though, was a human package of dynamite that was going to blast their club into a new age.

The 24-year old Judd was once dubbed "the Dynamite Kid", but his is a different explosiveness. His physical capability is everything. If his groin was not to come right, the Blues would have a massive problem: a reported $6 million worth of egg caked on their collective face.

The club has assessed, though, that what risk exists is worth taking for Chris Judd.

He is that good. He is solid. He is the quintessential modern-day professional footballer. In a different way from Barassi, but in a way equally unmistakeable and inimitable, he can be the catalyst for a new dawn.

On the other side of the country, a club and its fans are hurting. And Josh Kennedy, just 20, will be reeling from a combination of disillusionment, wounded pride, the sudden absence of mates, a sense of total powerlessness amid men's games, and more.

Under the rules governing player trade, one man's freedom can be another's burden.

Hopefully, Kennedy's day will come. He was a No. 4 draft pick and is now at arguably the most powerful club in the land. True, the Eagles have had some issues of late but the application of the microscope and blowtorch to a football club can have the effect of making it stronger.

With its midfield decimated during the finals, West Coast ran Port Adelaide and Collingwood to the wire. Even without Judd, they remain a contender.

On this side of the continent, it can be argued there's something for everyone in Judd's move. It will bring to the opening of next season an expectation rarely experienced in this era when most recruitment involves young players with still-developing bodies.

In less professional, more romantic times, star recruits often were drawn late and reluctantly to the big league. "Polly" Farmer came to Geelong at 27. Darrel Baldock and Peter Hudson might have been younger when they left Tasmania, but they were established champions. John Coleman had kicked 160 goals for Hastings the year before he joined Essendon.

The arrival of such players, with reputations that preceded them to Melbourne, created excitement across the football spectrum.

In the modern era, Tony Lockett's move to Sydney was the nearest equivalent. Now, Judd, the greatest player of the modern game, whom we've known as a West Australian, is coming to Melbourne.

He leaves an interstate powerhouse for the weakest team of the past five years.

The move is intriguing and compels many questions. Will Judd be diminished in any way after groin surgery? Will he fit as well at lowly Carlton as he did among the star-studded Eagles? Will he be captain?

Will this extraordinarily self-contained young man provide the practical leadership the lately demoralised Carlton so badly needs?

Does he have the breadth to be more than just the champion player he so obviously is? Might the presence of a disciplined champion influence the tempestuous Brendan Fevola, smoothing his peaks and troughs?

Judd doesn't see himself being involved in football beyond his playing days. In that respect, his recruitment is very different from that of Barassi, who was clearly destined to be a career coach.

But in another way, Judd to Carlton in 2008 is more than Barassi.

It is Farmer, Baldock, and Hudson as well. It is the return of the boom recruit. The big bang boom recruit. In that sense, it is exciting.