30 years on from the 1990 Grand Final, key players relive one of the ugliest brawls in footy history
Terry Daniher has one big regret from the 1990 Grand Final — and it isn’t knocking out Collingwood star Gavin Brown. The Essendon champ reveals his side of the story as key players lift the lid on one of the most infamous brawls in footy history.
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Gavin Brown was getting pumped up as he listened to a highlights package of the 1990 finals series on the radio driving along Hoddle St.
It was the morning of the Grand Final against Essendon and he couldn’t believe what a great run he was getting with the traffic on his way to the MCG.
When Brown arrived at the ground, it was a low-key welcome for the players in the Magpies’ dressing rooms.
There were no streamers, balloons or club paraphernalia. Magpies coach Leigh Matthews had wanted to keep the environment as normal as possible. Just like any other game.
It was a windy day and Brown thought to himself, “Shit, it’s not a great day for forwards”.
Running through the banner. The victory lap at the end of the game.
They all remain vivid memories of the 1990 Grand Final for the former Magpies champion, who has spent the past 30 years filling in the gaps and piecing together a lot of what happened in between.
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Little did Brown know, on that traffic-free drive to the MCG, he was to become one of the key figures in one of the most infamous brawls in Grand Final history.
In the most notorious exchange of the brawl, Brown was knocked out by veteran Essendon defender Terry Daniher amid the chaos as players – and club officials – exchanged a flurry of punches.
The no-holds barred melee which erupted on the quarter-time siren between Collingwood and Essendon was over in a few manic minutes, but the fallout was to last well into the game – and the next year for some.
THE FIGHT
Daniher was playing on Brown at full-back when the quarter-time siren sounded and sparks began to fly at the other end of the ground.
The Magpies were three points up after a tense opening term.
Daniher recalls the “spot fires” erupting on the half-forward flank, but the fight had “flared up” by the time he and Brown became involved.
“It all happened pretty quick. Gav knocked one of our boys over and I just evened up and squared up the ledger and that’s virtually what happened,” Daniher said.
“He knocked Kieran Sporn over … he was up there before I was and I came in a little after him and I just followed through.
“He knocked him (Sporn) over then I knocked him (Brown) over. He knew I was coming in behind so he turned around and wanted to know where I was and what I was up to.
“It just happens, you don’t think. You get taught to look after your teammates and you support them where you can and particularly on Grand Final day.
“Of course, over the other side of the ground, there were the trainers, the coaches got involved over there, too. It was happening everywhere.”
Brown can remember running to the other end of the field as the fight erupted, but what happened next still remains hazy.
“I was at full-forward with Terry and it was happening on the half-forward flank right down the other end, so I do remember running down the ground,” Brown said.
“I couldn’t tell you blow-for-blow exactly how it all happened, that was all a bit of a blur.
“Luckily enough people have reminded me about it.”
Collingwood captain Tony Shaw couldn’t pinpoint exactly what sparked the brawl, but had wanted to “fly the flag” for his teammates.
“Someone said Banksy (Denis Banks) and Kieran Sporn went at it,” Shaw said.
“I’m not doubting Kieran but Banksy could go and I don’t know what happened there.
“I couldn’t pick any specific thing other than seeing numbers and then you’ve just got to fly the flag as best you can.
“I just rushed in, threw a couple and got thrown out the back and threw a couple more.
“The main thing was the outcome of Browny going down. All the other stuff was just push and shove.
“When you see one of your own go down and a great player … I think we saw what the result of that was.”
Up in the stands, Eddie McGuire was calling his first final on radio 3KY as a young commentator and had his binoculars trained on the blow that felled Brown.
“I actually had Terry Daniher right in my binoculars as he ran up and belted Gavin Brown,” McGuire said.
“He hit him with the left hand and Gavin Brown was looking over his right shoulder and Terry came in from that side … and rammed him with his fist rather than punched him.
“It dropped him like a stone.”
OUT OF IT
After he was KO’d, Brown spent the second quarter on the bench in a daze.
“I can remember sitting on the interchange bench before halftime and it felt like being in a bit of a dream,” Brown said.
“It was like watching a bit of a dream go by … I was pretty well out of it.
“In today’s footy I wouldn’t have been able to go back on the ground without a doubt. I was pretty lucky in those times that old concussion rule wasn’t about. I was fortunate that I was able to participate in the second half of the game.”
As he started to come to, Brown, who had experienced being knocked out before, tried to hasten his recovery in a bid to get back on the ground.
“I had been knocked out a few times before so I knew the process if you like and that is that eventually I would come good and needed a little bit of time,” Brown said.
“I remember grabbing our fitness Adviser and runner and thinking, ‘I wonder if I can speed this process up a little bit by doing some ground balls and tackles and just get myself going at halftime in the rooms’.
“I don’t know why I did it, but I just twigged. Something in my brain knew it was a pretty important moment and I needed to get going as quickly as I could and not wait until the end of the game to be right.
“I reckon that really fast-tracked me and I got a bit more of a heightened awareness of where I was.
“I remember going up to Leigh, going, ‘I’m right to go, I’m ready to go’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, right’ and I noticed my name wasn’t on the magnet board.
“Luckily, I was back in the third quarter.”
THE AFTERMATH
When the dust finally settled on the great brawl and the teams gathered for their quarter-time huddles, the message from Matthews to his troops was simple.
Empowering his players to seize control of the contest after the mayhem, Shaw said Matthews’ speech set the tone for the team after the break.
“In one way it just had to be how you controlled it,” Shaw said.
“Leigh Matthews, he was brilliant, he just said, ‘Keep your head over the ball, attack it and the umpires will try and take control’.
“Leigh was always in control. To think that way under that pressure was unbelievable but that’s what we did. And that probably broke the game open.
“We controlled it and Essendon didn’t. Whether it was by luck or good management I’m not sure, but that broke the game open.”
The Magpies kicked six goals to the Bombers’ one in the second quarter to take a 34-point lead at the main break.
Star Collingwood forward Peter Daicos says while the Magpies settled, the Bombers had continued to “play the man”.
“I know Leigh at the time said three simple things … Essendon have taken their eyes off the ball, get your head over the ball and the umpires will take control of this game,” Daicos said.
“They went the man and we got relayed frees. I think we ended up with two in the goalsquare and two from within 20m and six goals to (one) and that was it.”
Kevin Sheedy had also implored his players to focus on the football after the melee.
But the legendary Bombers coach felt the umpires became whistle happy, overcompensating with frees after the quarter-time brawl.
“It’s a Grand Final and you need to refocus as quickly as you could, but they did it better,” Sheedy says.
“Collingwood seized that initiative I’d say and the umpires went a little bit free-kick friendly in the end and I don’t think that helped much.
“In the end they went mad with 50m penalties straight away just about to try and gain some sort of control of the match.”
THE REMONSTRATION
Essendon captain Tim Watson was on the other side of the ground waiting for the quarter-time huddle when the fight broke out.
He couldn’t see much more than “people going here, there and everywhere”.
But the image in his mind of a furious Collingwood coach Leigh Matthews screaming abuse at Daniher in the MCG race at halftime remains as vivid as ever.
Supporting Brown, who had sat out the quarter, as the team left the field at the main break, Matthews turned his fury on Daniher, shouting that Brown would be back.
Watson said Matthews was losing “his mind” at the popular Bomber.
“After the brawl, the thing I remember with great clarity is when we went up the race at halftime,” Watson said.
“Back in those days the rooms were side-by-side and there was only the wire partition between the two races and Leigh just looked like a man who had completely lost his mind.
“Coming up the race at halftime and he was pointing and shouting at Terry and all that sort of stuff.”
Few would have expected Brown to return, but when he did in the third quarter, he let Daniher know about it.
When he ran onto the ground, he immediately raced up to Daniher and chested him before lifting a knee at the Bombers’ defender.
“I went back out on the ground probably just to let him know (about it) and then we just moved on and played footy,” Brown said.
“I just ran straight up to him and remonstrated and just got on with the game after that.”
Brown’s third-quarter goal – his second of the game – after his return to the field remains a match highlight.
THE FALLOUT
Daniher copped an 11-match suspension at the AFL tribunal for two striking charges from the 1990 Grand Final.
He was slapped with a seven-match ban for his hit on Brown and another four games for striking Craig Starcevich in the third quarter.
Sheedy, to this day, still feels Daniher was hard done by at the tribunal.
“The penalty on Daniher was just incredibly foolish,” Sheedy said.
“I think he got something like 12 weeks and I think he never played until 13 or 14 games into the next year, which was the harshest penalty handed down ever just about.
“I think Terry was very hard done by, absolutely. Other people kicked people and he was one of the fairest players and most courageous players you would see play AFL footy and he copped that penalty.
“He took it on the chin but others wouldn’t have, I can tell you.”
Daniher offered a more matter-of-fact assessment of his penalty.
“That didn’t work out real well in there, either,” Daniher said.
“We were always going to have a bit of a battle, but you accept the penalties.”
Brown was also banned for three games for striking Sporn, while Sporn received a two-match ban for hitting Banks moments earlier.
In all, seven players faced 16 charges from the game. Three officials also had to front the tribunal for their part in a fracas on the other side of the ground.
NO REGRETS
Despite his hefty penalty — and his part in one of the most infamous Grand Final KOs of all time — Daniher said he didn’t live with any regrets over the incident.
“It is what it is. I have got no regrets, you go out and do what you can on the day and you just never know how it is going to pan out. It’s a game of football,” Daniher said.
“It would have been nice for Gavin to stay out on the ground, it would have been a great challenge, he missed quite a fair chunk of it, but the game goes on.
“I do have regrets over how we played after quarter-time.”
Shortly after the Grand Final, Daniher and Brown were teammates in the international rules series against Ireland.
Daniher said there was no bad blood between the pair, who later crossed paths as assistant coaches at Collingwood.
“We stay in touch, I bump into him from time to time. It has actually brought us closer together more than it drifted us apart,” Daniher said.
“I have always had a lot of respect for Gavin. He is a great guy, great family man and made of the right stuff.
“You quickly mend bridges.”
Brown also didn’t hold any resentment towards Daniher over the hit that knocked him out.
“I don’t hold any grudges,” Brown said.
“I remember in the last quarter saying to myself – I still wasn’t fully with it clearly – ‘We are about to win a Grand Final after 32 years, try and understand what it all means’ because obviously the edge was still off me.
“It all ended up pretty well from my end, thank goodness.”
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Originally published as 30 years on from the 1990 Grand Final, key players relive one of the ugliest brawls in footy history