Lightning Premiership Round 1, 1996
North Melbourne vs Melbourne
Friday 9 February
Venue: Waverley
Attendance: 7031
| 1st | Final | |
| North Melbourne | 0.0.0 | 3.5.23 |
| Melbourne | 3.3.21 | 3.4.22 |
North Melbourne win by 1 point
Goalkickers Jeff Farmer 1, Andrew Obst 1, Shaun Smith 1
The league clubs played the shortened format (2x 17.5 minutes) for $170,000 in prize money. The winning team was set to earn $40,000, and the runners up $20,000. The competition also had three points for hitting the post and rushed behinds, a last touch out of bounds rule, four goal umpires and four boundary umpires. The full event ran over three days, had 24,276 in attendance and lost $300,000. It was not staged again. During the weekend Marcus Seecamp won a 100m sprint competition.
The Demons played in the first match of the tournament, but after opening up a comfortable lead they were knocked out by the barest of margins in the first match of the tournament.
Best were Obst, G. Lovett and Farmer.
Media
Age - 05/02/1996
Age - 10/02/1996