Belper welcomed old foes Melbourne to Strutts having already lost heavily earlier in the season ,but with a much stronger team than their previous meets Belper put in a better display and despite the score line shared the majority of the play and came close on a couple of occasions to narrowing the scores.

Melbourne took the lead early on in the game when a missed tackle in the centers and despite Holmes' dash to tackle wasnt quite enough and Melbourne's skipper dived over under the posts and their talented 10 Ewan slotted the conversion. Belper replied well with Watson and Inns taking the ball on well but other players failed to show the same strength, on numerous occasions losing the ball going into contact thus allowing the visitors to soak up the pressure and steal possession away time and time again.

Belper added to their woes with pace merchant Gray losing the plot momentarily and tripping the attacking player, seeing Gray sin binned for 10 minutes. Belper however held firm and kept asking questions of their guests but pressure in the tackle kept spoiling Belper's game and as the game wore on Belper seemed to become more and more static in attack from the backs.

Despite Booth trying to inject pace into the play Belper were limited to their try scoring opportunitys with Melbourne tackling hard and well. Adams saw the ball ripped from his clutches as he picked up and went when he may have been better off leaving Naylor to spin the ball wide, Blackwell saw his run stopped just short when he may have normally wrong footed his opposite number but instead he crashed into contact.

Belper seemed to be drawn into a battle rather than play their own game and with some strange decisons being made at key moments, for example when Belper were awarded a penalty following a try stopping tackle round the neck which was penalised only with a penalty and yellow card when a penalty try was certain , Naylor took a quick penalty and was tackled by a player starting alongside him when he took the penalty.

Blackwell brought the game closer with a penalty before halftime to make the score 3-7 but after the break Melbourne's only real effort saw them power the scrum over and Belper nervously tried to take on the visitors but never really asked enough despite plenty of pressure, allowing the visitors to win a hard fought battle