Saturday 13 July - Fitzroy Cricket Ground
Crowd: 6000
Fitzroy 0.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.4
Melbourne 0.1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3
Fitzroy win by 1 goal
Goalkicker: McGinis 1
Having had their closest shave of eight straight wins a week earlier, Melbourne finally crashed to their first defeat of the season in a low scoring game at Fitzroy.
On a cold say, strong winds blew at right angles across the ground, making it almost impossible to score freely - and Fitzroy were represented by their best 20 of the season before losing a player to injury late in the first quarter. On the other hand Melbourne were missing Herbert Fry from their ruck division - replaced by the returning Alex McKenzie - and also had leading goalkicker Roche unavailable.
With the ball trapped on one side of the ground all day, and ruckwork important in the conditions, Fitzroy were the better side and when the ball broke free of the packs they used little marks to progress up the ground.
The wind was so strong the teams were reduced to using players lying in front of place kicks as wind-breaks to stop the ball from rolling away.
In a frantic last quarter Mitchell had the chance to put Melbourne ahead, but missed running into an open goal. Eventually Fitzroy kicked the winner and put themselves firmly in the premiership race.
O'Dwyer and Milne were reported. O'Dwyer was cleared but Milne was suspended for the rest of the season for using offensive language towards the umpire.
Best were Christy, O'Dwyer and O'Halloran.
Media
Australasian - 20/07/1895