Revealed: Story behind the wayward elbow that sparked The Battle of Brookvale
Eight years after The Battle of Brookvale, the man whose elbow sparked rugby league’s fight night will be back onfield for the latest showdown between the arch rivals - as a Melbourne Storm trainer.
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Ryan Hinchcliffe swears his right elbow was never swinging for the head of anyone.
Deliberately ignite The Battle of Brookvale?
“Nah, I’d just got into the game,” the former Melbourne utility recalls of that 2011 game now defining an NRL rivalry. “Was actually having my first carry.
“So I wasn’t wanting to fight anyone.
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“At the time, Manly had us hemmed down on our own tryline. So I was trying to find my feet, trying to get a quick play-the-ball because that’s something we always practised.
“And part of getting a fast play the ball was placing your elbow out …”
Which is exactly what Hinchcliffe did.
Video replays confirming the Storm No. 14 was scrambling, head down, to make his knees as that right elbow lifts, then lifts again.
“And Darcy Lussick’s head,” he shrugs, “it just happened to be in the vicinity”.
Which wasn’t exactly well received by the Sea Eagles prop, right?
“Oh, no,” Hinchcliffe continues, smile widening. “My elbow collects Darcy’s head and so he starts pushing and shoving.
“He was pretty fiery. Didn’t like what had happened.
“And as I’m starting to think ‘ah, do I throw one here?’, he’s thrown one at me — but missed.
“So then I tried half throwing one at him.
“It wasn’t much.
“But from there, you could say a little bit followed.”
A little bit?
Over the next three minutes at Brookvale Oval, Hinchcliffe’s innocuous elbow sparked an NRL slobberknocker that even now, eight years on, remains arguably the greatest — and last — all-in brawl of the NRL modern era.
A wonderfully, chaotic Youtube favourite which, topped by that sideline stoush involving Manly’s Glenn Stewart and Stormer Adam Blair, also saw benches cleared for a stink that earned 10 charges, five suspensions, $100,000 in fines and, as of this week, no less than six Manly players still refusing The Saturday Telegraph’s request for comment.
But Melbourne?
Thankfully, Storm Old Boys have a sense of humour.
Especially Hinchcliffe, that knockabout Temora product who, more than simply igniting said battle, will again be on ground on Saturday night when the two arch rivals clash in Round 24 — unmissable, as Melbourne’s blue shirt trainer.
“It’s my first go in the blue shirt at Brookie too,” grins the man now employed as Storm Development Coach.
“And given every week there’s someone in the crowd yelling ‘Hinchcliffe you’re shit’, I know there’s something coming at Manly.
“But that’s OK.
“Just adds to the theatre of this whole thing, right?”.
Absolutely, it does.
For if The Battle of Brookvale were a book, it should be dog-eared.
A yarn retold over and over.
Which is why this week, and with the Sea Eagles staying silent, we chased a slightly more purple retelling of that skirmish which, after that elbow, saw Storm trooper Blair throw uppercuts, Manly’s Stewart respond and referee Shayne Hayne sin bin both.
Which is where things should have finished.
And likely would have had the pair not reconvened by the sideline for a flurry of overhand rights.
A wonderfully violent dance which, within a blink, then saw Glenn’s younger brother Brett arrive with four more Sea Eagles as the brawl spilled toward the Melbourne dugout.
“And if I hadn’t been on my feet already,” recalls Jaiman Lowe, one of four Stormers warming the pine that night, “I was now.
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“There was no discussions about what needed to happen next, either.
“We just went in.
“It was actually like seeing your mate surrounded in a pub fight, you didn’t think twice about ramifications.
“It was ‘holy shit, there’s four blokes on Blairy and we need to do something because the rest of the team is 50m away beside the goalposts.”
Still, they were coming.
“I was headed back into position after the first scuffle when I saw the Manly players start running,” recalls Beau Champion, a Storm centre that night. “So I thought ‘shit, I’d better go that way too’, even though I had absolutely no idea what was on.”
And when you did?
“I thought ‘OK, what do I do now?’,” the Coogee real estate agent laughs. “Blokes were still allowed to throw punches back then so I was basically there for moral support.”
Not so much Storm prop Adam Woolnough though.
“I came in and jumped on Lussick, trying to throw punches,” the now Australian Institute of Sport engagement manager cackles. “Problem was, someone was on the back of me.
“So apart from not being able to fight, I had no range of motion. I’m throwing these little rabbit punches into the back of Lussick’s head as he’s probably thinking ‘who is this guy?’.”
And as for Lowe, who today works at Townsville port unloading trains from the phosphate mines?
“I grabbed Anthony Watmough who’d come in over the top (of Blair),” he recalls. “Brett Stewart, he was throwing punches but Watmough was just bent over in the melee pulling blokes off the pile.
“And as I’ve grabbed him, he swung around like ‘shit, someone has me’. So we were both stood there, nobody doing anything, but with a lot of verbal and the feeling like everything might kick off again.
“Which is when somebody, no idea who, shouted at me ‘mate, you can’t be out here’. That’s when it clicked and I thought ‘oh shit’.
“From that moment on, I was petrified they’d suspend me. Even though I never threw a punch, I didn’t think I’d get away with coming onto the field like that.
“But I only got 80 points, thank God. Never missed a game.
“Still, wild night.”
Got no calmer afterwards either, with Melbourne players escorted by police, one after another, from the sheds to a waiting team bus after losing 18-4.
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“And the Manly fans, they’d stuck around,” backrower Todd Lowrie recalls. “So it was still on.
“In all my years of playing footy, I’ve never experienced a more hostile crowd.
“Obviously both sides were fierce rivals who’d played in grand finals and were at the top of their games. There was also what you’d like to say was a mutual respect between the teams … but it really was hatred.
“So walking off Brookvale Oval that night, I can only liken it to leaving a fight night at somewhere like the Sydney Entertainment Centre. You know when everyone in the crowd is just so pumped, everyone thinks they can fight — it deadset had that feel to it.”
Lowe agrees.
“Even before the game, walking out through that perspex tunnel,” he recalls, “fans weren’t just banging the thing, they were donkey kicking it.
“Turned around and absolutely booting it.
“So there was a strange feeling right from the start that things were going to boil over.
“Still, nobody could’ve expected what was coming. At one point out there, it looked like a giant street fight.”
And all of it, remember, started by that accidental elbow.
“Probably was, yeah,” Hinchcliffe agrees. “That little incident probably played a fair part in everything that followed.
“Throughout the whole thing though, I never got to throw one real punch.
“And while I know you’re not allowed say it these days, yeah, I probably should’ve just got stuck in.”