"With all the champions they like to send us, we'll keep our end up, and then they'll know that they've been playing, the famous Old Dark Blues."

CARLTON won and lost last night, lost and won. And it is to be hoped that, with the champions soon to be sent to them — the spoils of defeat as the case may be — they do keep their end up, eventually. For the determined ineptitude of Carlton's final performance of 2007, against Melbourne at the MCG, will only be excused by the arrival of an especially good player.

If Matthew Kreuzer, the expected reward for what was an 11th consecutive defeat, isn't the next Stephen Kernahan, but instead the next Luke Livingston, then it may be a long time before the Blues are famous again or anything other than dark. Infamous and bleak, perhaps.

If that doesn't make sense, nor does the institutionalised encouragement to fail, which is the current system by which the lowly are assisted. That system made a solution of defeat for Carlton, who, for its exceptional shoddiness, now hold picks one and three in November's national draft. The blame isn't entirely Carlton's, of course. The Blues surrendered to temptation but temptation was placed before them first.

Apart from nibbling at the authenticity of what transpired last night, the clear disincentive to win — loss of the first pick — allowed for a lack of condemnation of Carlton's season. There was an absence of ignominy when it was all over — there was not even pity — for a 4-18 season.

How bad are the Blues? We don't know. They have an appalling record but it is hard not to believe that in another time the side could and would have produced more.

Was it not curious that they managed 11 second-half goals, once the result was effectively set by a 4.13 first half, which served to build a 41-point deficit by the main break? In fact, once seemingly assured of defeat, the Blues straightened up and kicked 11.5 to 9.7.

Conveniently, they were poor when it mattered — Lance Whitnall's kicking for goal in the first half was embarrassing — but competent and even slick when it did not.

In one sense, the encounter didn't even live down to expectations. For a match watched through the prism of the priority-pick debate, it was never the bizarre nil-all affair some anticipated; a "tank-off" between two teams with 22 reverse gears.

What would have amounted to a stain on the reputation of the game would at least have been something unprecedented to witness. Something both teams were genuinely competing for.

Whereas Whitnall kicked like a double agent secretly working for the enemy, Melbourne slotted seven opening-term goals and another five in the second. It played to win, not to profit, although Travis Johnstone's best-afield performance or Russell Robertson's aerial exploits and six goals suffered for the sense that the last match of the home-and-away season wasn't entirely authentic.

To the last change, Melbourne had needed to lay only 28 tackles to lead comfortably. In the end, it was fewer than 10 per quarter and the winning margin was 31 points.

Carlton, of course, laid claim to something else and, when it was over, it held what were once known as contradictory notions; defeat and achievement. It was mission accomplished.