A staggering eight players - five from North Queensland and three Broncos - were charged with contrary conduct after last Friday night's brawl, which lasted more than a minute.

Cowboys chief executive Peter Parr expressed disappointment at the number of his players involved and confirmed all five would be admonished for their behaviour. "You don't like to see that many charges but none of them have been charged with a major offence," Parr said. "I didn't see the brawl, I was at a sponsors' function, but [football manager] Dean Lance and the coaching staff are aware of my opinion of it and they're clear on my thoughts of getting the message across to the players. It's disappointing that they've been charged and I'm disappointed that the brawl escalated the way it did.

"But whilst we don't condone it, it's not the first brawl to ever happen in 100 years and I'd hate to see it get blown out of proportion."

Broncos player Michael Spence was hit with the most serious offence, a grade-three charge, after throwing several punches during the 75th-minute incident, and faces a three-match ban.

Cowboys player Tom Humble was charged with a grade-two offence after running in from fullback to join the melee, which at one stage split to form two separate brawls.

The eight players - Cowboys Humble, Chris Riesen, Ryan Carr, Shaun Maloney and Sam Bowie and Broncos Spence, Andrew McCullough and Mitchell Dodds - face a ban of 11 matches between them.

Toyota Cup manager Michael Buettner said: "It's disappointing to see any incident like that, especially with the severity of it. But the [NRL] match review committee has spent plenty of time on it and they're more than qualified to take responsibility and I think they've done a good job."

NRL chief operating officer Graham Annesley said no incident in the history of the administration - which was formed in 1998 - had produced so many charges.