In the brown corner: a venomous snake.   

That was the situation a team of unsuspecting workers stumbled upon in a Cobram engine factory this week. 

North Vic Engines Cobram employee Peter Craven, 49, said a staff member was putting away items in the factory when he spotted the baby brown snake tangled in the web of a redback spider.

“It was big,” he said, when describing the redback.

A video of the battle royale posted online, which already has more than 1.7 million views, might only last for 51 seconds, but Mr Craven said the death match went on for about an hour. 

In the end, it was the spider that prevailed, killing the snake with its venom. 

But that was not the end of the drama for workers yesterday.

“A bit later, one of the guys was standing at a work station and another brown (snake) went over his boot,” Mr Craven said. 

He said they would now remain alert while working in any dark spaces. 

While male members of staff found the incidents funny, Mr Craven said female workers were left unimpressed. 

”They didn't want to have anything to do with it,” he said.

With the scorecard at 1 – 0 in favour of the eight-legged beast, the company has decided to leave the spider in the shed in the hope it will keep other slithering invaders at bay.