1989 Grand Final podcast special: Dipper’s brawl with the Cats

Everyone remember’s Mark Yeates poleaxing Dermott Brereton at the first bounce of the 1989 Grand Final, but what about Hawk Robert Dipierdomenico’s brawl with a trio of Cats? Dipper, Neville Bruns and Andrew Bews look back.

Then and now: Bews, Dipper and Bruns.

Lost in the drama of Mark Yeates taking out Dermott Brereton in the opening seconds of the epic 1989 Grand Final has been the spotfire that broke out soon after.

Geelong’s Andrew Bews ­recalled it last week when re-enacting the moment he and teammates Garry “Buddha” Hocking and Neville Bruns took on Hawthorn hardman Robert “Dipper” DiPierdomenico on the MCG wing.

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If Yeates and Brereton provided the main event, then Bews and his mates ­ensured the undercard was of the highest quality.

Yeates’ hip-and-shoulder bump at the first bounce was over in the blink of an eye, but the Geelong trio and Dipper went at it for almost a minute as runners from both clubs, an emergency umpire and up to eight players also got involved.

The incident started two minutes into the game after Hawthorn’s Jason Dunstall had matched Geelong’s Gary Ablett opening goal by marking and kicking truly.

AFL greats Andrew Bews, Robert ‘Dipper’ DiPierdomenico and Neville Bruns re-enact their 1989 Grand Final brawl on the members wing at the MCG. Picture: Mark Stewart

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At the next centre bounce, Dipper threw himself on a loose ball only for Geelong on-baller Hocking to crudely crash into him.

It fired up the Hawks wingman and at one stage he ­appeared to have Bews, Bruns and Hocking in various forms of headlock, before Hocking left to search for ­another ­encounter.

Bruns, 60, gave his version of events when he met Bews and Dipper at the MCG this week.

“Buddha crashed in and tried to ­decapitate Dipper, clipping him with his elbow,” Bruns said. “I went in to ­defend Buddha, who was a younger player.

“I was swinging like a windmill trying to clock Dipper one, and might have connected with a couple to his head, but all that did was fire him up even more.

“I remember thinking ‘I’d better get out of here’ otherwise Blighty (coach Malcolm Blight) will get nice and nasty with me.

“When I left, Bewsy had Dipper in a half-nelson on the ground, with the Hawthorn runner (George Stone) certainly involved.”

There’s plenty going on here between Robert DiPierdomenico, Andrew Bews, Neville Bruns and Garry Hocking.

MORE FROM OUR 1989 GF SPECIAL:

1989 Grand Final: Four minutes of mayhem that sparked the carnage

The 1989 Grand Final brawl was sparked 147 days before the opening minutes at the MCG

1989 Grand Final: Thirty years on, the absence of Paul Couch still leaves a huge void

Bruns’s departure left the 175cm and 78kg Bews to take on Dipper at 185cm and 95kg. To the Geelong rover’s credit, he held his own and then some.

“I don’t think I was first on the scene but I was worried about the Hawthorn runner who deeply involved himself,” Bews, 55, said.

“He was far too close. I ­remember saying to Buddha and Brunsy, ‘F--- off, I’ve got him (Dipper) covered.’

“Then Barry Stoneham and Chris Mew came running in and they kicked up sand, which got into our eyes. I could see them coming but they arrived too quickly and I didn’t shut my eyes.

“I couldn’t see a thing. The ground was covered in sand because it had been a ­really wet winter. It ended up like a beach.”

Bews’s recollection of the sand sparked a response from DiPierdomenico, 61, who wondered why he seemed to be temporarily blinded.

“The three of them were on top of me,” he said.

“Buddha got my hair and was punching my head in, or was that Brunsy? I couldn’t do anything. Bewsy was choking me. I was gone (laughs). He was a strong little bugger.

Three Cats v one Hawk.

“I actually couldn’t see ­because I had dirt or something in my eyes. So I just grabbed what I could, which was the three Geelong boys.

“It was unbelievable at the time. It mightn’t look that much on the replay but let me assure you, it was very, very real.

“I had to face the tribunal a week or two later and actually raised with Hawthorn the Buddha incident, but they said, ‘Hey, we won, so don’t worry about it’.”

Shortly after in a marking attempt, Ablett crashed into DiPierdomenico and left him with a punctured lung, ­although it wasn’t diagnosed at the time, leaving him to somehow play out the match.

Gary Ablett crunches Robert DiPierdomenico in the first quarter of the 1989 Grand Final as Andy Collins looks on.

By the end of the match, Dipper was in a bad way.

“I played on Brunsy for all of that game — not that I can remember much of it — and at three-quarter time my coach Allan Jeans had a go at me ­because Brunsy was starting to get through,” DiPierdomenico said.

“I watched the game for the first time only a few weeks ago and couldn’t believe I actually had a few shots on goal in the last quarter.”

Unlike DiPierdomenico, Bruns and Bews have never watched the game in its ­entirety, Bews saying he has seen “bits and pieces”.

“I know exactly when to turn it off,” Bews said.

“When the umpire blows his whistle for a ball-up on the centre wing, it’s time.

“That’s when the big bull (Dipper) comes through and ­elbows me in the eye, putting four stitches in it, two seconds before the game finished.”

Dipper leaves the MCG for St Vincent’s Hospital after suffering a punctured a lung.

One day Bruns, too, will sit down and watch the match from go to woah, but he isn’t quite ready yet.

“Would we have been better had we not been as aggressive in 1989?” Bruns said.

“I don’t remember us going out intentionally to belt them but the game just went that way.

“Everyone says we could have won had we concen­trated solely on the ball, but maybe we wouldn’t have got as close if so many of their players hadn’t been injured.

“Looking back we didn’t have that special team ­ingredient the Geelong sides of 2007-09-11 had.

“We were more a team of champions than a champion team. Hawthorn had both ­ingredients.”

Originally published as 1989 Grand Final podcast special: Dipper’s brawl with the Cats