THE PAIN of victory can be as aching as that of defeat. Last year, Melbourne won and lost when these two teams last met, in what was ungraciously titled the Kreuzer Cup.

Yesterday, the Demons learned how much they lost.

There was the player whose name adorned the contest — Matthew Kreuzer — playing for the other team, playing well, doing as much as you might hope of a No. 1 draft pick ruckman but not more. There was also Chris Judd, the finest midfielder in the game; but for fitness, the finest player in the game. A player only affordable for the trade market by the luxury of an additional draft pick earned by being so despicably poor. Without the extra draft pick, Carlton could only have had one or the other — Judd or Kreuzer, not both.

But that was not the really agonising bit. The real pain was that had they lost that game last year, the Demons would be in line for an extra front-of-the-draft priority pick this year and, in all likelihood, would end up with picks one and two at the national draft. Granted, it is only round five and it might appear unkindly pessimistic to consign Melbourne's season thus already but the Demons have yet to get closer than 30 points to an opposition this year (incredibly that was the best team, Geelong) and it does not seem outrageous to suggest after almost a quarter of the season that they are unlikely to challenge for five wins.

Judd was a reminder of what is possible when an extra pick is available. Two moments were more important and telling than any other in this match.

The first was at the beginning of the avalanche of goals in the second term. Judd received from Adam Bentick, by way of Heath Scotland out of the middle, ran hard and went for goal. He kicked. It was a six-pointer. When the ball left Judd's boot, he was still well inside the centre square. The ball landed at an unattended goal line and had carried the better part of 60 metres. It was his longest kick this year and, indeed, in about a year. Admittedly, it was on the run and at pace, which helped his range, but this was a kick Judd had been incapable of for some considerable time.

The second moment to give pause was in the final term. Judd, as he did several times in a game mired in stagnation, sloppiness and indecision, imposed himself on the match. He received a pass from Cameron Cloke on the wing, gave it to Shaun Grigg, only to gallop at him and demand the ball be immediately returned to him. Judd had Brock McLean on his tail but accepted the challenge and demanded the ball anyway. Dutifully, Grigg obliged, then did enough to discourage McLean's chase as Judd stepped inside, faked past another pursuer and speared a low ball in front of Brendan Fevola to mark and goal.

In that moment, Judd revealed that not only had his pace returned but, so, too, the most compelling aspect of his game — moving laterally at pace. Many players can run quickly, every player can cut an angle, but few can combine the two and accelerate at a diagonal. Judd always could but, like kicking long, he had not done so for a long time.

"When you can dodge two players the way he did and kick it to Brendan down the field in the last quarter, that sideways movement, lateral movement and power in his game is really coming back," Carlton coach Brett Ratten said.

By the time this occurred, Judd had a measure not only of his own capacity but that of McLean. He knew whether McLean had the dash to gather him in from a half-step behind and whether he could ask his own body to do something it had not allowed him to do for some time.

Ordinarily, a player such as Grigg would weigh the type of situation Judd was in and deny him the ball, exercising a caution the beseeching player would have been best-placed to have used himself.

But players such as Judd, paradoxically, create an uncertainty in their own teammates, challenging assumptions of what is likely to occur next as they also create a certainty in them that things will all work out. And in any event, the ball is better in his hands than their own.

"Elite players of the competition, you have seen over time and history, they demand the ball because they know they can do something with it. So they try and extract it from their teammates, so that they can take the game on and do what is required for the team," Ratten said. "The beauty is we had Chris Judd at the start of the second quarter and he is the one, when the game was slowed up and became very flat, he was the one who broke the game open and really changed it. That is the beauty of having a player of his quality at our club."

Melbourne learned that lesson bitterly yesterday, if it did not last year.