Boomers players have finally broken their silence on what really went down during the infamous basketbrawl in Manila that attracted world headlines and resulted in 13 Australian and Filipino players suspended and over $1 million in fines.
Five years on, after Australia’s 2018 World Cup qualifier against the Philippines descended into total chaos a special Code Sports investigation can finally shed more light on what sparked the 60 seconds of complete madness and revealed more about the drama and death threats.
Memories of the “wild” and “scary” melee 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.
Boomers forward Thon Maker revealed the brawl could have dangerously 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.
To watch the full video breakdown of the basket-brawl narrated by Boomer Jason Cadee, CLICK HERE for the full CODE Sports investigation.
“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.”
During the warm up several players got into a heated confrontation that turned into a push and shove after Philippine small forward Calvin Abueva then attempted to trip Daniel Kickert.
But all hell broke when Boomers sharp shooter Chris Goulding was heavily fouled and Kickert retaliated with an ugly elbow to the back of Philippines player Roger Pogoy.
“I remember seeing (Andray) Blatche running past me with his fist clenched coming for Kickert and I was like, ‘holy shit, this has gone wild’,” said former Boomers point guard Jason Cadee who was caught in the middle of the brawl.
Goulding and shooting guard Nathan Sobey copped the worst of the attacks having both been hit by chairs and king hit. Incredibly, none of the Australian players were seriously injured thanks largely to the intervention of Boomers assistant coach Luc Longley.
“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.”
Read the full CODE Sports investigation at codesports.com.au