Beaten teams are never happy. Success buoys, reinforces, consoles, alleviates. But defeat doesn't merely smart. In a team sport it -divides, sows doubts, demands reasons, invites censure.
Michael Clarke's Australian unit is unhappy, with themselves, and with each other. The captain has criticised himself. The coaches have chastised the batsmen and bowlers.
For their part, some members of the party have been detectably disgruntled with the selectors about the exclusion from their XI of Brad Haddin, with the implied support of former greats such as Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden. 
Actually, you'd be disappointed were it otherwise. That's accountability. It's also comradeship. Who can withhold admiration from tough, leathery Haddin, a player in Australian cricket's best traditions? Who would not wish to spare from additional hurt a good man whose family has been wracked by a child's ill health?
It's unsettling nonetheless. As Australian captain 20 years ago, Mark Taylor subscribed to the principle of only ever commenting critically on a performance after a win. After a loss, people were too vulnerable, feelings too raw; after a loss, there was no need to add to the general supply of negativity.
Taylor was blessed, of course: you can afford to accentuate the positive when your teams lose as seldom as his did.
But he was right that messages resound differently in the wake of defeat, when they can feel like -denial, blame, self-abnegation and self-exculpation.
To a distant onlooker, something is a bit odd in all this. Two weeks ago the Australians played a Test at Lord's to which Clarke also contributed little, and from which Haddin was also absent. With Steve Smith and Mitchell Johnson in excelsis, they won by 405 runs.
Eight sessions later and we have Clarke in his Armani hair shirt. "The captain needs to get off the plane," he said, with admirable candour.
But some issues around the captain predate the extinguishing of the seatbelt sign and the issuing of the customs declarations. Clarke's leadership record away from home is nine victories, 12 defeats and an average of 38; he also has one half-century from nine digs at the English summer's remaining Test venues, Trent Bridge and The Oval.
An adroit attacking captain expert at prosecuting victory, Clarke has been less adept in adversity. In his first defeat as skipper, he made an unforgettable, death-before-dishonour 151 against South Africa at Newlands; in 77 other innings in losing causes, he averages less than 23.
Similar questions hovered not quite a year ago when Australia were soundly defeated by Pakistan in the Gulf. But under two-Test series lines are quickly drawn; over an Ashes haul, more is always asked. And no leadership challenge is sterner than rejuvenating a team while one's personal form is indifferent.
It's widely assumed that Adam Voges (average 18.3 in his past four Tests) will give way to Shaun Marsh (average 45.3 in his past four Tests) at Trent Bridge, with the hope that the top order can worm through the opening left by the absence of James Anderson. This will afford Clarke the opportunity to revisit No 5 - a vault, he must hope, in which some bullion remains. Trouble is that Clarke struggled when he came to the wicket in the 96th over on a drearily slow surface at Lord's. He has not been lucky at the crease lately; perhaps he is due some.
Some luck has come his way off the field. Because he departed the selection panel just over two years ago, he is not associated with the omission of Haddin - in the way he was involved, for instance, in Haddin's earlier absence from a dozen Tests in 2012-13 (also precipitated by ill health to Haddin's daughter, but during which Matthew Wade briefly established himself as first choice keeper on merit). That's left coach Darren Lehmann to defend his fellow selectors' reasoning, which he did after Edgbaston with Gradgrindian facility: "The cold hard facts are he's played the last 12 Test matches and made 250 runs at 15, with 16 bowleds out of 21." And that Lehmann actually rendered the facts a little colder and harder by doubling the frequency of Haddin's dismissals bowled - it's happened eight times not 16 - did not suggest a coach for turning.
Haddin's successor Peter Nevill might in the meantime compare notes with his chairman of selectors Rod Marsh, whose early Tests were under similar auspices 45 years ago. Marsh recalls in his autobiography the qualms with which he heard teammates praising predecessor Brian Taber as a keeper and comrade, especially when he turfed four catches on debut. Nevill has already done -admirably to stave off his first.
Does it impact Lehmann's standing in his group? Although the coach has strong credit on which to draw, his chagrin at -Birmingham was visible. He needs a victory at Trent Bridge as much as anyone, nor is it to be ruled out.The Tests are getting shorter, not longer, and the skies are clear. Two further results can be expected, and the swings of the wrecking ball these past four weeks have bookmakers now declaring the Australians ever so slightly favourites. But their own household may need some tending first.