Manly’s Mark Broadhurst recounts the day he and Steve Bowden sparked a savage all-in brawl

It’s 39 years today since the most brutal fight in rugby league history exploded on the SCG. In the first of our series revisiting the game’s biggest moments, Dean Ritchie gets Mark Broadhurst’s view of his blue with Steve Bowden.

Sub images for fight yarn

A former Manly front-rower has broken a 20-year silence to reveal how a pre-game taunt from his opposition prop led to the most violent and notorious brawl in rugby league history.

Ex-Sea Eagles prop Mark Broadhurst, one of the main protagonists of the fight between Manly and Newtown in a 1981 elimination semi-final at the SCG, claimed it was an alleged pre-game threat from Jets prop Steve Bowden that triggered the 1min 45sec brawl.

While all 26 players were involved in six separate on-field melees, the main bout was between Broadhurst and Bowden, two of the hardest props of their generation.

Steve Bowden And Mark Broadhurst comes to blow in the explosive Newtown-Manly semi-final encounter of 1981.

Bowden twice headbutted Broadhurst, who played on with two closed eyes through eye socket and cheekbone fractures.

Manly teammate Les Boyd remembers Broadhurst’s courage: “I remember Mark saying once on the field: ‘Give me the ball but tell me which way to run – I can’t see’.

“He couldn’t see where he was running or what he was doing.”

Sea Eagles skipper Max Krilich added: “It was violent but you had to play in those violent days.”

Legendary Channel 7 rugby league commentator Rex Mossop called the match, roaring: “Bowden and Broadhurst are going at it hammer and tong – like two heavyweight fighters. On the quarter line there’s another melee involving five or six.

“Broadhurst is down, Bowden still pumping punches into him. It’s erupted again.

“The referee is going to be put under intolerable pressure to sort this out and still keep 13 on the paddock. It’s started all over again.

“They are still throwing punches. It just won’t stop, it’s been going now for two minutes. Boyd is being told to cool it by his teammates, he seems to have blown his cool.

“That is the most frantic opening to a rugby league match I have seen in 35 years. He could caution the entire 26 players. There’s Broadhurst, who has two black eyes by the look of it.”

Now 65 years old, Broadhurst lives a quiet, retired life in Kaikoura, an east coast town on New Zealand’s South Island situated 180 kilometres north of Christchurch. He has just been diagnosed with the onset of Alzheimer’s.

He hasn’t spoken about the fight for nearly 20 years. His lives a peaceful life fishing and walking – in stark contrast to that day, 39 years ago to this day, when Newtown rattled Manly enough to post a 20-15 win.

Bowden continued to pump punches into Broadhurst on the ground.

BOWDEN’S TAUNT

Broadhurst says it was on before the first whistle.

“Someone said to me before the game: ‘Bowden is looking for you’. I knew it was going to be on. I was then asked about Bowden and I said he was going to get his as well.

“I was ready to have a go. What Bowden said got back to me and I thought: ‘Righto, I don’t mind getting into either’. If it’s on, let’s get into it. That was one way to sort it out.

“If he wanted to get it on then I had to be prepared. You’re going to get a hiding anyway so you might as well have a go.

“Bowden might not even have said it, I don’t know.

It was just a story that got back to me.”

Bowden doesn’t talk about the fight nowadays, but in 2003 he recalled the biff: “They don’t often show that brawl on TV because they don’t want to turn people off the game. But a lot of kids are thrilled to see all the biff and blood.”

The fight left Broadhurst with a fractured cheekbone and eye socket.

FISTIC FURY

The flying fists were vicious and savage. Bowden was sent off and Manly’s Terry Randall was also dismissed for kicking.

“I can remember everything about the fight,” Broadhurst said. “We got into and then it got broken up. (Bowden) then butted me from the side (a second time) when I wasn’t even looking — that’s what fractured my cheekbone and eye socket,” Broadhurst said.

“I was then on the ground and he was belting me. I can’t remember the Manly player who came and helped me out (winger Tom Mooney). I’m bad on names.

“(Bowden) got the better of me in that scrap, obviously. He got me on the ground and belted me a few more times.

“It went for a long time — that’s what happened back then, teams trying to sort each other out. It was the first scrum of the game I think. Other guys joined in, it just went on and on.

“The Manly guys tried to help me out. I don’t know if I even felt the headbutts because I was hyped up at the time. I couldn’t see for the rest of the game, both eyes closed up.”

Broadhurst has only seen Bowden once since the fight — at a Newtown fundraiser 20 years later.

Former Manly Sea Eagles hardman Mark Broadhurst is doing it tough now.

BAN THE BIFF

This day marked the start of NSWRL officials attempting to clean-up rugby league.

“It happened at the end of an era before they cleaned the game up with all the TV angles,” Broadhurst said

“The cameras got too good and that changed it all. Rugby union even got in before us and cleaned their game up and we had to follow I guess. It was part and parcel of what it was like.

“I loved it. I miss that side of the game when it got cleaned up. Props would try and sort each other out.

“When you’re playing prop in those games, and Test matches, you go in there expecting a punch-up. It’s about give and take.”

THE HOSPITAL AFTERMATH

Despite his horrific injuries, Broadhurst went directly from the SCG to Manly Leagues Club for a few quiet beers, albeit his side had lost.

“The doctors had a look after the match. I wasn’t feeling very good but I remember going back to Manly Leagues Club,” he said.

“We didn’t stay too long because I felt really tired. It was a tiring game, there was a lot of pressure on you. We went home quite early.

“I think I ended up going to the Manly Hospital either later that night or early the next morning for the cheekbone and eye socket.

A year later, Broadhurst was dropped to reserve grade so he quit Manly to join former teammate John Dorahy at the Illawarra Steelers. Broadhurst then spent time playing with Hull Kingston Rovers in England before returning home to play local footy in Papanui and Christchurch.

“I think I played until I was 43,” Broadhurst said.

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TOUGH TIMES

Broadhurst admits he now “has trouble remembering stuff”. “I have dementia now. I have actually been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I have had five brain scans over the last five, six weeks, and then they said I had Alzheimer’s, which comes under the umbrella of dementia.

“I went and saw my neurologist 10 days ago and he said I had Alzheimer’s. I feel pretty good but I just forget what I’m doing half the bloody time.

“There’s nothing you can do about it. There are a lot of people at a much younger age that are a lot worse off.

“When I was 15, in a junior schoolboy game, I got knocked out and had delayed concussion – that didn’t help from the start. I ended up in hospital.”

Broadhurst reckons the disease may have come from rough footy days and a short heavyweight boxing career, where he fought four times as an amateur heavyweight in Christchurch and Invercargill.

“It’s possibly got a bit to do with it because that was what it was like in those days. I think I was knocked out completely four times and the boxing didn’t help,” he said.

“Sparring was like fighting. We were knocking each other’s head off – lots of shots to the head and seeing stars. But I wouldn’t change anything.”

Originally published as Manly’s Mark Broadhurst recounts the day he and Steve Bowden sparked a savage all-in brawl