On the same day, with G. Ashwood, he won the Double-sculling race; in July he beat J. Stuart over a course of two miles and a-half, in light skiffs, for £10 a side.
Acting on the advice of Michael Rush, Matterson came to Sydney, and in April beat Nichols, of Shoalhaven, for £20 a side, in light skiffs, over the Parramatta championship course.
On 22 May, at the Ned Hanlan-Elias C. Laycock exhibition match on the Nepean river, he won the All-comers' Light Skiff with 25 lb, defeating four others.
On 29 May 1885 he beat Charles A. Messenger for £200 a side over the champion course was then matched to row Peter Kemp, but, being in ill health, forfeited his first deposit of £25.
The challenger was severely overmatched, and the race turned out to be little more than a training run for the champion, who won easily in a time of 24 minutes.
He competed in the final heat of the Lake Bathurst Handicap Outrigger Race, won by Jim Stanbury, on 14 January 1887, but was not placed.
On 4 July of the same year, he was beaten by Peter Kemp for £200 a side and the Tennyson Cup, over the championship course, Parramatta river.
He was third in the final of the Brisbane Aquatic Carnival, rowed on 11 December, and won by Henry Ernest Searle, with Peter Kemp second.
Matterson trained the latter champion sculler of the world, Henry Ernest Searle, for all his engagements on the Parramatta river.