Saturday 11 August - East Melbourne
Crowd: 6000
Melbourne 4.12
Geelong 6.12 (half time 0.2-6.10)
Geelong win by 2 goals
Goalkickers: Stiffe 2, Murphy 1, Conway 1
The two sides met at East Melbourne in unfavourable conditions, but a decent crowd still turned out as it was considered to be one of the most important matches of the season.
Geelong brought their best team of the season, and had the luck of kicking with the wind in the first half. They made the very most of it, kicking one goal early and following it regularly until they had six up at the break. Despite improved form in 1882, Melbourne's defence against the first half attack was feeble, and even their own supporters began to turn on them. It took until they were five goals down to score a single behind.
With a six goal deficit Melbourne were too far behind to win, but they made a better fist of the game in the second half when they had the breeze. Within a few minutes they goalled first through Murphy. Another followed through Conway, and soon they'd wiped four goals off the margin before the half way mark. The Reds were missing too many opportunities to recover the rest of the goals. With Geelong kicking out of bounds as often as possible to waste time Melbourne's time with the wind was further diminished when the ball landed in a swamp and was unable to be retrieved for a time. The game started late, and took so long to finish it was nearly dark at the final bell.
Two goals to Stiffe made the match interesting, but Geelong rose to the challenge and put in a sustained period of defence and time wasting tactics which eventually held Melbourne out.
Best were McKenzie, Plant and McIntyre.
Team
Booth, Bower, Conway, Jones, Mackenzie, Macdonald, McIntyre, Morris, Moss, Murphy, Patterson, Plant, Pohlman, Proudling, Rickards, Rush, Sloman, Stiffe, Thewlis, Tuckfield.
Notes
Some sources have McIntyre scoring instead of Conway
Media
Herald - 10/08/1883
Argus - 13/08/1883
Sportsman - 15/08/1883
Australasian - 18/08/1883