But Storm prop White, and NSW Rugby League general manager Geoff Carr explained away the incidents as the passion of the game boiling over while Price yesterday described it all as being "just footy. Sometimes it goes that way."
Match review chairman Greg McCallum said White and Price both escaped sanction for their parts in the one-on-one fight because it was accepted that in league that "sometimes players fight. Provided that it is contain within the two of them and it ends when it ends naturally then we don't have have a major issue with it."
He agreed that a similar fight between two AFL players would have probably seen a tougher sanction, but "one's a body contact sport and one's a semi-contact sport. There's a lot of non-contact in AFL but there's also a lot of elbowing that takes place and issues off the ball that I suppose we find challenging to view as well."
But he said the tolerance did not extend to players rushing in and escalating the issue, which is why Waterhouse is facing a one-match ban after being charged with contrary conduct.
Carr said while he did not condone what happened, it could be explained by the circumstance the players found themselves in with Queensland, which had secured an unprecedented fourth consecutive series win, attempting to inflict a final humiliation on the Blues in front of a sold-out Suncorp Stadium.
"The message I'm (trying to get across) is that this isn't typical ? It was a one-off and we'll do our best to make sure that it doesn't happen again but the reason why it happens is because it's important to them," he said.
NRL chief executive David Gallop would not comment yesterday
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/league/origin-passion-behind-brawling-20090717-dn2t.html#ixzz1WJl8PXGJ