It’s the infamous basketbrawl that will forever be remembered as one of the sport’s ugliest moments.

July 2, 2018, the day Australia’s World Cup qualifier against the Philippines descended into total chaos.

Five years on, Boomers players have broken their silence on what really went down during the “wild” and “scary” melee at the Philippine Arena, near Manila.

In a special Code Sports investigation, multiple Australian players, staff and officials have shed more light on what sparked the 60 seconds of complete madness and revealed more about the drama, death threats and unfounded allegations of racial abuse that followed.

Memories of the dramatic fracas will resurface with the Australian men’s national team set to return to The Philippines for the first time at this month’s FIBA World Cup.

The Boomers are expected to reach the second round of the tournament, where games will be held back in Manila.

Australian players involved have moved on from the horrific incident, but memories of fearing for their lives will always be etched in their minds.

Boomers forward Thon Maker earned the nickname ‘Kung-Fu Thon’ and made global headlines when he used flying kicks during the fight as he was attacked by multiple Philippines players.

Maker revealed the melee could have dramatically escalated, were it not for the remarkable restraint from the team’s bench players’ to stay on the sidelines as their helpless teammates were bashed.

“If Delly (Matthew Dellavedova) had let the whole bench storm the court, and we were all fighting for real, then I think the entire stadium would have come down,” Maker said.

“It would have been us versus the whole country basically.”

Code Sports examines the fight from start to finish, documenting the key moments that defined one of world sport’s most intense and ugly altercations.

WATCH AS JASON CADEE LOOKS BACK ON THE INFAMOUS BRAWL

LIGHTING THE FUSE

Secretly filmed video of Boomers staff removing dangerous sponsorship decals on the playing surface during a closed door practice was aired on Philippines TV that night, was a pivotal moment leading into the brawl.

“That is where the gas was lit,” Cadee said.

“Obviously, our session was being recorded because they had video.

“Something that we thought was about (player) safety turned into ‘disrespectful Australia’.”

Floor decals are not uncommon but there was a big problem with the one on the court at the Philippine Arena.

The decals were extremely slippery, causing Australian players to lose their feet numerous times with Boomers guard Kevin Lisch only narrowly avoiding serious injury.

A request to venue management to remove the decals fell on deaf ears so members of Australia’s coaching staff, including Luc Longley and Mark Bradtke, took matters into their own hands.

“We couldn’t get any help, so we thought ‘screw it we’ll rip the decals up and we’ll pay for them to go back down and figure it out later’,” Cadee said.

“But we weren’t trying to be disrespectful — it was all about safety, and we couldn’t get any help.”

Maker remembers fearing for his — and his teammates’ — safety on the slippery decals.

“Man, someone could have been seriously injured,” Maker said.

“We couldn’t really do any serious training because there were decals all over the court on both corners, the free-throw line, the paint, the halfcourt and it was the same on the other end of the court.

“Someone had to slip every time you did a drill.”

Australian players also noticed the rims weren’t at their usual height of 10 feet — they had been elevated.

Boomers legend Bradtke said he recently found one of the decals from the Philippines game in an old equipment bag in his shed.

“I texted Luc (Longley) because I was going through an old bag and I sent him a photo of the floor decal that the players kept slipping on,” Bradtke said.

“Luc may have been the one to pull it up.”

PRE-GAME POWDER KEG

The Boomers players almost came to blows with the opposition during the warm up.

Cadee revealed they could sense the tension from the moment Australia walked into the arena on game day.

During the pre-game warm-ups the Filipino players were just itching for a confrontation when they began crowding onto the Australian half of the court.

“It’s one of those things that you know you don’t do, and they were three or four deep over our half as we were doing lay-ups,” Cadee said.

Boomers veteran Daniel Kickert attempted to calm the situation by asking the opposition to move to avoid potential injury.

“Basically just laughed at us,” Cadee said.

A frustrated Kickert then tried to physically move the Filipinos out of the way, which sparked a push and shove between both teams.

Philippine small forward Calvin Abueva then attempted to trip Kickert.

The former NBL veteran retaliated by pushing and shoving another member of the Philippine team, who he mistakenly assumed had tripped him.

A heated confrontation between the two teams resulted, which officials were forced to defuse before the game even started.

Abueva later conceded he tried to trip Kickert, but reacted because the Australians had been ‘bullying’.

Cadee, though, maintains the Australians quickly put the pre-game hijinks behind them.

“None of us thought anything of it (the pushing),” he said.

“We wanted to get the game underway.”

THE BRAWL

After all the drama and tension leading into the World Cup qualifier, the Boomers were intent on making a statement.

As their 52-37 halftime lead ballooned, so did the Filipino players’ frustration along with an unnecessary level of nasty niggle.

When Cadee replaced sharpshooter Chris Goulding just after the long break, the fuse was well and truly lit.

“Chris pointed at a Philippines player (Roger Pogoy) and said, ‘this guy is being an absolute w*****’,” Cadee recalls.

“He said the player was pinching, scratching, grabbing me and talking shit — basically this guy is being a tosser.

“The tension had been brewing, but we were playing well so that was our focus. This guy was out there to niggle as much as he could.

“He was trying to incite stuff and he ended up inciting it all.”

The Australians remained focused, surging to a 79-48 advantage.

Then, with Goulding back on the floor all hell broke loose.

With 4:01 left to play in the third period, Pogoy hit Goulding with two hard fouls.

After the second, Kickert retaliated with an ugly elbow to the back of Pogoy.

That prompted Filipino players Andray Blatche — a former NBA man — and Jayson Castro to retaliate.

Cadee was right in the middle of all the craziness with blue Filipino singlets everywhere.

“I remember seeing Blatche running past me with his fist clenched coming for Kickert and I was like, ‘holy shit, this has gone wild’,” Cadee said

“One player looked at me, then ran away and hit someone else from behind.

“That’s when I realised these guys weren’t looking to fight — just hit people and then run away.

“That next minute felt like it was five minutes. It went forever.”

The Philippines bench players, officials and fans rushed onto the court to join the brawl leaving the Boomers players on the court dangerously outnumbered.

Enter Kung-Fu Thon. Blatche attempted to throw a punch at Kickert but was stopped by Maker.

Then Maker launched a flying kick into a mob of blue singlets that were attacking Goulding before being struck from behind by Filipino player Terrence Romeo.

“All I could hear was Delly yelling out from the bench on the other side of the court, ‘protect yourself’ right before I got hit in the head,” Maker said.

‘I COULD HAVE DIED’: GOULDING MOBBED

The brawl seemed to be de-escalating until attention turned to the northern end of the court where up to 10 Filipino players, officials and fans Filipinos had ganged up on Goulding in a cowardly display.

One of the players involved in the pile on was Pogoy, while assistant coach Jong Uichico was seen punching and dropping a chair on Goulding who was in the foetal position doing whatever he could to deflect the relentless blows.

Australian assistant Longley, a massive presence at 218cm, had no choice but to leave the bench and enter mayhem.

“I remember seeing Goulding on the ground with multiple people on him and that’s when Longley just took off to rush to his aid,” Cadee said.

“That’s when Longley also grabbed me and pulled me behind him.”

Goulding said it was only after he saw the footage of himself being viciously bashed by 10 Filipino players and staff he realised he could have been killed.

“It was looking back the next day and watching the footage that I kind of realised that something really bad could have happened,” Goulding told the Today Show at the time.

“I could have lost my life.

“I was on the ground with a lot of people on top of me, punching and kicking, so I just tried to stick my head down and wait it out.”

COWARD’S PUNCH

One of the most-disturbing images captured during the brawl was the brutal fist to the face of scoring guard Nathan Sobey.

The cowardly cheap shot came from Jio Jalalon — a Filipino basketballer, who was not even on the roster — was delivered while the Brisbane Bullet had both hands held by a security guard, after he copped a chair thrown at the back of his head.

Peter Aguilar, the father of Japeth Aguilar, threw the chair at Sobey as he was trying to help Goulding off the floor.

A chorus of basketball greats, including Chris Anstey, at the time, slammed the act as “criminal”.

Sobey told Code Sports he’s put the shocking incident behind him and prefers not to speak expansively on the subject.

“It was pretty wild circumstances,” Sobey said.

“I had no broken bones or anything, so it was pretty lucky.

“I think we did a great job of being able to all come out of there OK and I guess carried ourselves the right way.”

Sobey, who was left out of the Boomers squad for this World Cup, acknowledged it would have been “interesting”, had he made the team and ended up back in the Philippines, next month.

“Obviously, if I was picked to go, that would have been the first time I would have gone back and I really don’t know how it would go,” he said.

“It was pretty crazy but I’ve moved on and been to a lot of places and played a lot of basketball since then.”

Jalalon showed little remorse for his disgusting act, moments after the game caught on the livestream smiling and posing for a selfie with teammates.

Maker says he felt helpless watching Sobey being held back while he copped a punch to the face.

“The person that held his arms back and the other guy punched him — that part is what really pissed me off,” he said.

“Everyone else just tried to cool the moment down as much as they could because it was just chaos.”

LEVELLING BLAME

Cadee acknowledges Kickert’s retaliatory elbow that set off the brawl wasn’t the best course of action but it was a reaction to Pogoy’s persistent attacks on Goulding.

“When Kicks hit the Philippines player, it was high, unsportsmanlike and probably an ejection and we all knew that,” Cadee said.

“But this was the same bloke that was pinching, scratching and trying to hit people, so Kicks was trying to stick up for Chris and protect him.”

However, the fact that Aussie bench players remained on the sidelines is evidence that, according to Cadee, the Boomers were not there to inflame the already-volatile situation.

“I can’t remember a time when, as an Australian group, we’ve thought about leaving the bench,” he said.

“Our coaching staff rallied everyone up and said, ‘stay here’ but, as things escalated, the likes of Luc Longley and coach Andrej Lemanis went on to help our players in trouble.”

BRAWL AFTERMATH

Cadee recalls the edginess in the building — and the fear the Boomers players felt as a result as both teams returned to their benches.

“Bottles were being thrown from the stands and it had that, ‘this is going to explode feeling’,” he said. “Fans were taking photos of us, like they were happy with it.

“Players were scared.”

The brawl caused a 30-minute stoppage. The referees ejected 13 players, four Australians and nine Filipinos leaving the home side with only three players.

Under FIBA rules play should continue as long as both teams have more than one player on the court.

At this point, Cadee took control and called his teammates into a huddle in an attempt to calm their nerves.

“I said, ‘let’s shake their hands to try and defuse the situation’,” he said.

“Our coach said ‘we’re going back on, so do whatever you can to finish this game’.”

Cadee said the Australians were happy to finish the game in a respectful fashion.

He remembers a Filipino player deliberately hitting him after he had passed the ball.

“I said, ‘what are you doing’ and he said, ‘bro, we’re just trying to foul so the game gets called off’.

“We agreed and the game ended up being called off.”

The game officially ended with 1.57 remaining in the third quarter.

SHELL-SHOCKED

Cadee remembers a feeling of disbelief as the players sat around in the away dressing room in the bowels of the stadium trying to process the chaos that had just unfolded.

As Sobey and Goulding were already being treated by team medicos video footage of the ugly brawl soon emerged online, allowing the Boomers players to relive the scary situation.

“We were all trying to figure out what the hell had happened — we were all shell-shocked,” he said.

“The brawl was online straight away, so we were all watching in the sheds.

“We didn’t know what was happening outside — we just got told to stay there.”

The Boomers players remained in the away sheds for up to two hours before arrangements could be made to leave the venue.

It emerged that thousands of riled up Filipino fans were waiting outside Australia’s team hotel, so team officials had to organise an alternative option.

Cadee remembers getting a police escort from the venue to the Australian embassy.

“There was a safety element to it all, so, from the sheds, we sat on a bus and got told to shut all the blinds,” he recalls.

“We went straight to the embassy hotel, and we had to pass over all our details, including safe codes, for the officials to collect our gear from the Australian hotel.

“It was a long night.”

DEATH THREATS

The Australian players and officials ordered room service — and a quiet beer — and then crammed into one of the rooms for a meeting.

“We were all starving and still trying to figure out what the hell had happened,” Cadee reflected.

And just when the Australians thought the madness of the brawl had surpassed, the tirade of vile online abuse and death threats began.

“Some people received some pretty ridiculous messages and bad ones, especially Chris Goulding and Daniel Kickert,” he said.

“Like death threats and everything you could imagine came through to their DMs.

“Some of those boys were getting those messages months and months later.”

After a largely-sleepless night the usually straightforward trip to the airport to fly home was made considerably more complex due to the increased security threats. Boomers players were told to wear casual clothes and no Australian gear.

Officials transported the team’s bags to the airport first before the team followed — again flagged by a police escort.

“When we got to the airport, the police formed a human tunnel for us,” Maker recalls. “We went straight through security with a big barrier, onto the plane and out of there.”

SOFT PENALTIES

In the aftermath, 13 players were slapped with suspensions and fines amounting to over $1 million following FIBA’s 17 day investigation.

Ten Philippines players received between one-and-six-game bans, while Kickert was suspended for five, Maker three and Goulding one.

Cadee said the Australians were bitterly disappointed with the sanctions.

“I think a few people thought we should have left the bench as well to protect each other,” he said.

“We didn’t instigate it; we didn’t say anything bad. The only thing where we went wrong was the Kickert elbow.

“Whereas the Philippines’ coach was revving his players up during time-outs and almost inciting (violence).

“Then, when it comes out and everyone gets similar penalties — it was like ‘what the hell was that?’ and ‘why did we even bother?’.

“We were told not to say anything until the penalties came out, but that was a waste of time because it was all silly anyway.”