Saturday 7 August - South Melbourne Cricket Ground
Crowd: "5000 to 6000"
South Melbourne 0.6
Melbourne 0.12 (half time 0.3 to 0.3)
Match Drawn
South had been one of the surprise packets of 1880 in the wake of their merger with the Albert Park club, and had already defeated Melbourne once for the year.
For the first 10 minutes the two sides traded play from one of the field to the other before Melbourne opened the scoring with a behind. The two sides then traded behinds before the visitors spent five minutes defending their goal from a series of attacks by South.
By half time both sides had registered three behinds each. After the resumption of play Melbourne were the dominant side but stubborn defence by the home side kept them at bay. Controversy arose when Melbourne had the ball seemingly over the line but the umpire disallowed it on the grounds that the South goalkeeper had touched it first.
The two sides were on an even keel for the rest of the match, but nobody could break the deadlock and the two sides settled for a scoreless draw. Melbourne had double the 'scoring' shots for the day.
Best were McKie, Bennie and Mackenzie.
Selected team
J. Adams, D. Aitken, F. Baker, J. Bennie, R. Booth, W. Boys, HJ Downes, E Lamrock, EW Longden, W. Longden, John Macdonald, M. McKenzie, W. Manifold, JG McKie, T. Nash, F. Power, R. Simson, EA Smart, A. Young, JF Watson. E. Silvester and HH Graves (emergencies).
Notes
Some sources give the crowd as 3000-6000
Media
Argus - 07/08/1880
Argus - 09/08/1880
Weekly Times - 14/08/1880
Australasian - 14/08/1880