They were beaten by 50 points and never looked like causing an upset, but Melbourne coach Paul Roos was happy to bank a moral victory on Saturday.
Hawthorn eased to a 17.13 (115) to 9.11 (65) win at the MCG, punishing turnovers and putting on intermittent bursts of champagne football.
But the ladder-leading reigning premiers were never able to truly break the shackles, something that pleased Roos.
"It was definitely a huge learning curve for us against a really good team. Probably in the past I suspect this club might have gone down by 100-plus points," he said.
"Today we fought it out.
"We just got beaten by a better team, a team that moves the ball really (well).
"They're a premiership side and they're going to be right up there."
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson paid tribute to the Demons' pressure.
"We played against a side that did really well at stopping us from playing our normal way," Clarkson said.
Roos pointed to Dom Tyson's shutdown job on Sam Mitchell as an example of what his side would look to achieve over the final stretch of the season.
"For a guy who hasn't had a pre-season he's a really good learner," Roos said.
"He went to Mitchell after halftime and played a really accountable role on a terrific player.
"That's the sort of thing we need to get out of the next three weeks it's really a teaching environment for us."
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