Battle of Brisbane No2, 1966
Article reproduced with the kind permission
of Mike Colman, Courier Mail, Brisbane Australia
Mike Colman
November 17, 2006 11:00pm
Second Test, Lang Park, July 16, 1966
Rival Props Cliff
Watson and Jim Morgan exchange blows in the first
test Brisbane 1970, a game that was to be called the Battle
of Brisbane, Mal Reilly is
involved also, with Artie
Beetson about to enter the fray.
For the first time in 33 years an Australia-Great Britain
Test ended tryless. But alhough the second Test of the
1966 tour lacked free-flowing football, the blood at least
flowed freely on the Lang Park turf.
The match, won 6-4 by Australia, was one of the most violent
in rugby league history, with one player needing 33 stitches
after being kicked in the head, another knocked senseless
by a punch in the opening minutes and a spectator running
on to the field to take a swing at British fullback Arthur
Keegan.
After a fast, open first Test won 17-13 by Great Britain,
more than 45,000 flocked to Lang Park to see the return
bout. "Bout" proved to be the perfect description.
Prop John Wittenburg, playing in his first Test, was flattened
by British front-rower Brian Edgar early in the match,
Australian centre Graeme
Langlands laid out little English halfback
Tommy Bishop
with a copybook "coat-hanger", Dick
Thornett and Billy
Smith tag-teamed on British forward Jim Mantle,
and former Queenslander Noel
"Ned" Kelly and fearsome Englishman Cliff
Watson fought a running battle.
But it was the sight of British forward Bill Ramsay kicking
Australian Mick Veivers in the head as he lay on the ground
that almost caused a riot.
Referee Col Pearce sent Ramsay from the field. As Veivers
said years later: "They reckon he was limping when he
left because he'd hurt his foot on my head."
First Test, Lang Park, July 6, 1970
Sydney garbo Jim Morgan scored twice in the first Test
of the 1970 tour but it is not for the tries that he is
most remembered.
BATTERED hero . . . Jim Morgan after the second Battle of Brisbane. He enjoyed scoring two tries.
It is the photo of him after the match, his face covered
in blood and his nose a flattened pulp after he was head-butted
by Great Britain forward Cliff Watson.
The match was the second to earn the title "The Battle
of Brisbane" and this time Australia won the game, 37-15,
although the Englishmen could be said to have won the
fight.
The set-to between Morgan and Watson broke out late in
the first half. After an all-in brawl had subsided the
two stood holding each other's jerseys.
Morgan attempted a head-butt and Watson replied with interest.
When Watson stayed in Australia after a stint with Cronulla
in the early 1970s the two men became close friends but
Morgan, who died while swimming at the Gold Coast last
year, always felt he had the last laugh.
As he said after the match: "They can break my nose in
any Test as long as I can still score two tries."
|
