July 28 - East Melbourne
Crowd: "About 8,000"
Melbourne 1.10
Carlton 0.11 (half time 0.5 to 0.8)
Melbourne win by 1 goal
Goalkicker: Billy Stiffe 1
After two wins in a row, Melbourne kept their winning streak alive with a narrow victory in difficult conditions. Rain turned the ground to mud, and the second half was farcical until a 50 yard kick with the wet ball scored the winning goal late in the game.
A ground made fast play difficult, but when rain started falling midway through the first half the players were left to scramble around with each other in the mud. Carlton had the best of the first 30 minutes, scoring several behinds, but were unable to register a major. Neither side's forwards could kick with any accuracy due to the wet ball and they could only managed 13 behinds between them.
By the second half the mud on players' jumpers meant they could hardly be distinguished, and neither side had any clear advantage until the last few minutes where Stiffe converted from an acute angle 40 yards out.
Best were Conway, Sloman and Plant. Bertie Collins suffered a knee injury.
Teams
Aitken, Booth, Bower, Collins, Conway, Cunningham, Jones, Lewers, McKenzie, McDonald, McIntyre, Morris, Murphy, Patterson, Plant, Rickards, Rush, Sloman, Stiffe, Strachan, Thewlis, Tuckfield
Notes
Some sources give Carlton's half time score as 0.7
Media
Herald - 27/07/1883
Argus - 30/07/1883
Sportsman - 01/08/1883
Australasian - 04/08/1883
Sportsman - 22/08/1883