Wayne Bennett still bristles at the thought of it.

The disrespect. The disgust.

The sheer anger that the game he loved would be taken down a path he despised.

More than two decades later, one of the most famous moments in State of Origin history still fills the most successful coach in rugby league with rancour and rage.

The grenade-try celebration was the moment that capped an astonishing series sweep for NSW 25 years ago.

It was also the moment that changed the course of State of Origin history.

So enraged was Bennett by that moment, he made the decision to return to the Origin fray, a move that planted the seeds for a Queensland dynasty.

“I still remember watching it at home,” Bennett says.

“I was so pissed off because that’s the image I never wanted for the game, let alone at Origin level.

“The disrespect it showed the game and the opposition.

“I just had no truck with it all. None at all.”

As NSW and Queensland prepare to lock horns again on Wednesday night at Suncorp Stadium, this is the story of the grenade celebration through the eyes.

THE CAMP

NSW arrived at Stadium Australia for the final game of the State of Origin series in 2000 with its hands already on the shield.

It had opened the series with a controversial win in Sydney when Gorden Tallis was sent from the field in the dying minutes for abusing referee Bill Harrigan.

The Maroons walked away from that game deflated but still with hope.

It was extinguished in Brisbane as NSW clinched the series on foreign soil, rendering the final match of the series a dead rubber. The Blues were ready to let their hair down.

Enter former Network Nine boss David Gyngell, who offered the players the chance to watch an early screening of Any Given Sunday, a movie starring Al Pacino as an NFL coach of a fictitious US football team.

“It was about day three of the bonding session,” NSW forward Bryan Fletcher reflects.

“The great David Gyngell had organised an advanced screening of the movie Any Given Sunday.

“No one had seen it. This was before streaming.

“So we went and watched it, a private screening, on the beers at Fox Studios in Moore Park.

“In the movie, after (movie character) Willy Beamon throws a touchdown, they did this hand-grenade celebration. Remembering, too, at the time The Footy Show had teams challenging each other to come up with the best post-try celebration.

“So, from the movie we went out for beers and we ended up at the Bourbon and Beefsteak at Kings Cross. We were downstairs with all the mirrors and the brass poles and it just so happened that there were drag queens calling bingo.

“I grabbed them and started organising a trial run of the grenade with them.

“No one else would join in with me so I grabbed a few of the drag queens and slowly but surely a few of the teammates jumped in.

“My memory then serves me that we returned home to our hotel, the Coogee Plaza, and I gave it another road test with the hotel staff.

“I was just frothing on it and I wanted to get it down pat.

“I grabbed some of the housekeeping staff in the foyer and we used a pillow as a football until security came and said, ‘righto, Bryan. Go to bed’.”

Former NSW centre Ryan Girdler: “It wasn’t like we planned it.

“But I think we were having a bit of fun knowing that it was kind of a dead rubber and said, ‘if we get the opportunity and it’s a bit of a blowout, maybe we throw the grenade’. We weren’t expecting that to happen in Origin. The guys were just all having a fair bit of fun at the end and probably got a little bit too carried away.

“If someone’s gonna throw it, it’s gonna be Fletch. The whole preparation going into a dead rubber was different to any other one I had been in. The training is different. It is a lot more fun. I think it happened like that.”

THE GAME

The Blues took a 20-10 lead into halftime after a brace of tries in to Girdler.

The floodgates opened in the second half as NSW got on a roll and Queensland wilted. Girdler was in the thick of it, on his way to setting a record for most goals in a match and most points in a match that still stands to this day.

It was a stroll in the park for the Blues and, as the scoreline grew, the NSW players began to let their hair down.

NSW halfback Brett Kimmorley: “I was just enjoying the fact that I’m playing with blokes like Freddy (Brad Fittler), Tooves (Geoff Toovey), Joey (Andrew Johns) and Tim Brasher.

“So, for me, it was all about soaking it in and learning, ‘what is Origin’?

“That third game, with us already being 2-0 up, I know we didn’t plan to do it (grenade).

“It wasn’t like we deliberately went out to do it. One of the first sets of six, we scored by playing footy and going around them.

“It was a case of playing with footy players, as opposed to playing to a structure.

“It was like, ‘if I’m close to dummy-half, I’ll go to dummy-half’ ... it was free-flowing football based on winning the play-the-ball and finding space. And on the back of that, points came.”

Girdler: “They had a really good side and the first two games were tight. Even though the series will go down as 3-0, it was super-competitive.

“So, that third game just blew out a little bit because of the situation. I think even the first 20-30 minutes of that one was pretty tight. It just blew out late. To be honest, I thought I’d played better in the other games of the series. It was just that we scored so many points.

“If I look back at the way that I scored – a couple of the tries were pretty simple. We forced an error on a kick and I jumped on the ball.

“In the other games, there were other areas that I felt like I contributed more but, on that night, it was about basically just scoring points.”

THE TRY

NSW was leading 28-10 when they went wide with 15 minutes remaining in the game.

Andrew Johns, playing hooker, passed to Kimmorley before the ball found its way into Brad Fittler’s hands. He then put Tim Brasher in a hole and Fletcher loomed in support.

The NSW back-rower strolled over, celebrated with Fittler, and unleashed a post-try celebration that is still burned in the memory of Queensland fans.

Fletcher pretended to pull the pin out of the ball and then launched it into a group of Blues players, covering his ears while his teammates fell to the ground.

Fletcher: “We scored the try and ‘Girds’ came up to me. And he will deny this, but it was him that was yelling, ‘Let’s do the hand grenade, let’s do the hand grenade’.

“Of course we did it. Remembering, I had already done this twice before, with the Drag Queens and the housekeeping staff.

“So I was straight into it, I knew what I was doing.

“Unbeknown to me, everyone else just took up their position and the rest is history.

“There were a couple who wouldn’t do it, but pretty much everyone else did.

“Robbie Kearns was all over it because I remember he was one of the few that had put the work in with me at the Bourbon.

“Many people think this was something we spoke about before kick-off. Honestly, we never spoke about it while we were sober. It was merely just carry-on while we were bonding.”

“Unbeknown to me, everyone else just took up their position and the rest is history.

“There were a couple who wouldn’t do it, but pretty much everyone else did.

“Robbie Kearns was all over it because I remember he was one of the few that had put the work in with me at the Bourbon.

“Many people think this was something we spoke about before kick-off. Honestly, we never spoke about it while we were sober. It was merely just carry-on while we were bonding.”

Tallis: “The hand grenade …. my first thoughts were the score was 56-16. I don’t remember any other Origin score but I remember that score.

“I didn’t really know who did it. I glanced at it in the corner of my eye.

“I saw it. It was one of those moments you see something happening but you turn away because you didn’t want to see it happen.

“I didn’t feel anything. If I said something it was for the fans of Queensland that it was disrespectful. Deep down we disrespected the state the way we played that night.”

THE DISRESPECT

Tallis may not have felt disrespected by the celebration that night, but others did.

None hurt more than Chris Close, the manager of the Queensland team at the time, and Bennett, who was watching from his lounge in Brisbane.

They were fuming.

Bennett: “I was at home in Brisbane. I was disgusted, I was angry, I was pissed off. I had never seen anything like that before in the game.

“That wasn’t the game that I wanted to be part of. Wouldn’t coach it, didn’t believe in it. Very angry – still am when I talk about it and think about it.

“It was the disrespect, for me, of the game and the opposition.

“We all have our bad days but I hate the disrespect.

“I treasure what our game brings, I just believe in what we bring and what we do.

“But outside of that, it is offensive to me.

“You have to respect the game, you have to respect what you’ve been given.

“We didn’t create this game. They gave us this game, and they paid a huge price for it, those men 100 years ago.

“They don’t have what we have today and they played it with love. We should respect what they give us, what they went through to give it to us.”

Close: “This is personal to me.

“When you play footy, and you play rugby league, and when you’re on the field, regardless of how hard you play or you don’t play, there’s an unwritten code.

“And that unwritten code is that you don’t belittle your enemy. You don’t make fun of them and you don’t ridicule them.

“I think NSW crossed the border of that in that incident.

“I thought it was a deliberate attempt to demean the Queensland team and in my position as a Queenslander, an ex-player and at that stage a manager but even just as a fan, I don’t think there’s a place for that in the game and I don’t think that they should have done it.

“I don’t hold any bitterness towards anyone who was involved in it, but I think I hold bitterness towards the actual act of throwing the grenade.

“The old story is you don’t kick somebody when they’re down. That’s what they did so they can get f**ked.”

Kimmorley: “At no point did we do it to show disrespect. At no stage did we design to rub this in Queensland’s face.

“It was a case of we had a game of footy where everything went to plan and we had a day out, like we were playing backyard footy.

“This was just a great group of guys, with plenty of characters who came into camp for six weeks, who trained hard and had a lot of fun.

“Remember too, this was a time in the game that you were allowed to be a character.”

Fletcher: “We weren’t taking the piss out of Queensland. Being disrespectful never came across our minds. They were struggling. It was a cracking try celebration, of which a lot of teams were doing at the time.

“We never once said, ‘If we beat them, we’re going to do this’.

“It was just a bit of fun and you don’t often put 50 points on in an Origin match.

“I remember Dave Shillington (former QLD and Roosters forward) after he made his Origin debut, he came up to me and said, ‘Mate the first thing we did was sit down and watch you throw a grenade.

“We all just said how big a dickhead you were. I thought that was hilarious.”

THE FALLOUT

In the wake of that incident and the Maroons’ heavy loss, Queensland knew they had to make change. And Bennett was ordained as the man to make them.

Close and Maroons legend Dick ‘Tossa’ Turner led the charge to get Bennett back in the fold and the seven-time premiership winner answered the call, albeit after having his arm twisted.

It was the beginning of an Origin overhaul that planted the seed for a Maroons’ dynasty, unearthing the likes of Johnathan Thurston, Billy Slater and Cameron Smith on their way to winning 15 series since.

NSW have won eight and one has been drawn.

Close: “I woke up one morning in a cold sweat. I was at home at the Gold Coast.

“I woke up at about four o’clock in the morning and all I could think of was what’s going to happen next year, what’s gonna happen next year, we need to turn this around.

“I made a phone call to my mate, Tossa, and I said, ‘What are we gonna do, how are we going to get Wayne Bennett back?’

“So I then rang Wayne and I just said, ‘Mate, listen, we need to have you back’.

“And he said, ‘I don’t think I can’.

“I said, ‘So you’re just gonna walk away, gonna step away and let it f***ing take its course? That’s not what Queenslanders do, Queenslanders don’t do that’.

“To his credit, he said, ‘F*** you, I’ll come in then’. Not only did he come back, but he put things in place then that culminated in the situation that eventuated from 2006 onwards.

“He really went above and beyond to make sure that he put things in place that would actually have a future benefit, things like training at the Academy of Sport, making sure that we had certain criteria that we needed to meet each year prior to picking the team, and making those camps start.

“It led to that magnificent streak that we had when Mal (Meninga) took over as coach and away we went. We had a great team but we had a great background there from the things that Wayne put in place.

“I put a plea to him and I made it very personal to him. What do they say in the classics – I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

Bennett: “There were a lot of Broncos players in that era that were playing for Queensland. “And we were in a bit of a state and the players came to me when they came on the series as well, and they asked me (whether) would I come back and coach Origin.

“I didn’t want to do that. But I felt after what had happened in Sydney and the carry on after it and everything else, I felt my guys were always giving their best for me.

“If they thought it was important that I coached Origin, then probably I should help them out and the state. So I went to see Ross Livermore, who was the chief executive at the time.

“I said, ‘I’m not coming back under these conditions. Things have to change and they have to change for the better’.

“So we went to the Queensland Academy of Sport, met the sports minister with Ross and we got accepted into the Queensland Queensland Academy of Sport.

“We made changes with regards to the selection. I brought Gene Miles in. We turned the place upside down. To Ross’ credit he gave me permission to do that.

“I remember I was on holiday on the Coast and I left the Coast.

“I didn’t tell my family where I was going – I made something up and I drove to Brisbane to meet with Gene to go and see a camp where we were going to go and stay.

“I still feel guilty about that. Tossa Turner was right behind me, Chris Close was there with me. We made a lot of change.

“The last thing I did then was I felt a lot of those players who had played for Queensland had disrespected their jerseys with their performances.

“So I dropped about 10 of them.”

Girdler: “Oh, mate, it just puts a smile on my face, to be honest. I think Wayne came back and they had a massive clean-out – they brought like 10 or 11 new guys in for that next series.

“So, you know, just anything to piss those Queenslanders off is always good fun. The fact that they still talk about it makes me enjoy it even more.”

BRING BACK THE GRENADE?

Bennett’s return ushered in renewed success for Queensland.

In 2001, they won the series after Allan Langer made an heroic return from England to help the Maroons over the line. They lost three of the next four series.

But then they won 11 of the next 12 as part of the greatest dynasty in Origin history.

The honours have just about been even over the past seven years, but NSW have the upper hand heading into Wednesday night’s series opener at Suncorp Stadium.

They won a tight contest last year to clinch the series and they will start this year’s series as favourites to retain the shield.

If Fletcher has his way, they might even celebrate with something special.

Tallis: “Was it motivation for Queensland? I would like to say yes.

“Now that I know Fletch it has made it easier. But I tell him it helped us win eight in a row and we’ve always told him that.

“Fletch thinks he can take claim for Queensland’s eight in a row but I won’t give him that much credit.”

Fletcher: “It would be pretty cool to bring it back. If Happy Gilmore is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary, it’s good enough for the grenade to come back.”