Melbourne RFC’s first ever victory! Match report from March 1983, typed up, without editing, from original hand-written copy in April 2007. 

Match Report

On Sunday afternoon (5 March 1983) the fledgling Melbourne Rugby Football Club travelled to Coalville.in.glorious weather to record its first ever victory in front of about a hundred spectators.

The opposition were an unknown quantity being composed entirely of ex-First XV players. .However,.Melbourne were aware of the question mark about the fitness of the Coalville.men. .Tactics were decided.accordingly, the overall Melbourne plan being for the talented backs to run the ball at every opportunity to.stretch the older forwards.

The first quarter of the game saw Melbourne very much in defence with Coalville.playing the ten man game.and probing the defences with tactical kicks. .The sound catching of full-back.Walters.and left-wing George.Shields, however, largely neutralised these tactics.

As the first half progressed Melbourne began to settle with Haggett,.Chellaston.woodwork teacher, working.hard in the line-outs. .Scrummaging was very solid with tight forwards Bainbrigge.and “Cotney”.Williams.getting stuck in and soon there was a sufficient supply of good possession for Melbourne to begin to.demonstrate the fast, open style of rugby which was to lead to their victory. .The ball was moved several times.along the backs to Holmes.and Middleton.on the right. .Good ground was also made in bursts by G. Shields,.Fawcett and Harvey.

The first score came when hooker Fawcettmade the first of four strikes against the head. .The Melbourne.half-backs.were quick to capitalise and centre Cowlishaw.broke through from a short pass to score under the.posts. .The score at half time remained at 0 - 6.

Shortly after half time Coalville.equalised. .Melbourne won a scrum near their own line but harrassing.by.flanker.Marsh led to a loose ball which was picked up and turned into points by burly second row forward.Burchall.

From this point on, Melbourne’s back row forwards Silkstone,.Willy.Shields and parke.showed their.superiority. Sparke.in particular demonstrated his speed and strength, but all appeared regularly in support of.their three-quarter line. .More tries soon came. .A penalty from the Melbourne 22-metre line was run left,.passing through numerous pairs of hands, and culminated in a try for stand-off Cusworth.Cowlishaw’s.pace.brought him two more tries. .And skipper Fawcettalso touched down under the posts after backing up a good.run by Sparke.

Happily Coalville.did not slack off despite the scoreline.and they were eventually rewarded with another score.Quick possession from a maul on the right brought an overlap on the left and skilful centre Braine.touched.down with only minutes remaining. .The final whistle left Melbourne winners by 28 points to 12.

The Melbourne club, which at the moment plays only irregular Sunday games, would welcome additional.players and anyone who is interested should contact Garry.Fawcetton Melbourne 3380.

Some notes on the above :-.

Sparke.was Gordon.Sparke.(i.e. not to be confused with Sparks and Sparkes).The fly-half was an Ashby.player who was always called Les.after the England fly-half Les.Cusworth.- the match report therefore refers.to him as Cusworth.He was, I think, really called Derek and I don’t know his proper surname. Middleton,.who I think was 16 (possibly 17) at the time, is Dave Middleton.and is therefore the only person who played in.Melbourne’s first ever victory who is still playing for the Club in 2006 / 2007.