Saturday 28 April - MCG
Crowd - "About 500"
Melbourne 9.15
Public Schools 0.5 (half time 2.2 to 0.5)
Melbourne win by 9 goals
Goalkickers: Plant 2, Unknown 7
As was tradition, Melbourne opened their season with a match of 20 against 25 from the combined public schools - five each from Melbourne Grammar, Geelong Grammar, Scotch College, Wesley College and St Patrick's College.
With McKenzie in charge of a Melbourne side greatly strengthened by inclusions from other clubs, including three from the defunct East Melbourne team, they were expected to deal with the school side easily.
The schools' goalkeeper saved them from conceding early, but the pressure continued and Melbourne eventually broke through for the first of the day courtesy of Plant.
The juniors then spent 10 minutes breaking even with Melbourne, and the ball was up and down the field several times before Plant added a second for Melbourne after 20 minutes.
Again the loss of a goal caused the juniors to increase their effort, and for the next quarter of an hour they kept the ball in Melbourne's territory - almost scoring on multiple occassions and only being denied one goal by the ball touching a schools' player as it went through. The visitors had more scoring shots in the first half, but bad luck and stout defence stopped them from registering a major.
With the advantage of kicking downhill in the second half Melbourne asserted their superiority as the game went on. They booted seven more goals in the second half, while keeping the schools scoreless.
Best were Ley, McKenzie and McIntyre.
Media
Australasian - 28/04/1883
The Argus - 30/04/1883
Australasian - 05/05/1883