The performance was a notch down on last week's gallant AFL loss to unbeaten Geelong, but Carlton comfortably walked away with the points against Melbourne on Friday night.

The Blues' dour 13.15 (93) to 6.10 (46) win over the injury-depleted and defensive Demons was workmanlike, but enough to lift them into the top four.

Carlton led by 14 points at the first change and edged further in front at every break, with toothless Melbourne never looking like mounting a comeback.

The Demons have now lost four of their past five games, with the only win in that time their 96-point, round seven thrashing of Adelaide.

Carlton captain Chris Judd, who had been under an injury cloud after hurting his foot against the Cats, starred, while midfield colleague Marc Murphy continued his fine season start.

Speedsters Chris Yarran, at halfback, and Jeff Garlett (two goals), at half-forward, added some touches of excitement to a match that sorely needed them.

The tone was set in the first term, when the Demons could barely hit a target by foot and were particularly wasteful going into attack.

Demons' tall defender Matthew Warnock had a horror first half.

He dropped a chest mark deep in defence to allow Garlett to pounce for Carlton's second goal, then trailed Jarrad Waite to the ball, allowing Waite to mark a Judd pass to kick his side's third.

That set up Carlton's 14-point, quarter-time advantage and it became 20 points early in the first when Warnock gave away a close-range, free kick diving onto the back of Carlton's Setanta O'hAilpin attempting to rush a behind.

The lead was whittled back to 16 points at halftime, but two goals to Carlton's Andrew Walker in the third quarter, the second set up by a slick Judd handball, helped create a 29-point buffer at the last change.

It blew out further in the final term, as a tiring Melbourne allowed the Blues to run in for some easy goals.

The win came at a cost for Carlton, with Jordan Russell subbed off with hamstring tightness in the first term and fellow backman Jeremy Laidler forced out of the game by injury in the third quarter.

Carlton coach Brett Ratten said it was a frustrating game, particularly early, but the Blues showed maturity to post a substantial win.

"Sometimes over the last couple of seasons if we've gone into games being the favoured team, sometimes we haven't carried that burden as well as we should have," he said.

"There's no doubt our group has really matured and taken responsibility, all of us as a team, and I can see that come out in our performance, that was very workmanlike."

Melbourne coach Dean Bailey said despite the Demons missing a host of first-choice players, they should have performed better in all aspects.

"Today's performance was disappointing, absolutely, regardless of who's in the team," Bailey said.

"You could sit here for an hour and talk about what-ifs and could-haves and should-haves, but the reality is we had 22 players and so did they."

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