Club/s
Fitzroy
Brisbane Bears

Years
1978-80 (Fitzroy Player)
1981-85 (Fitzroy Coach)
1991-95 (Bears Coach)

Games
41 (Played)
224 (Coached)

Goals
77

Honours/Awards
Longest serving Bears coach
Second longest serving coach (combined) in Club history

Robert Walls was an unheralded hero in the Lions premiership hat-trick of 2001-02-03.

He was the man who helped build one of the greatest teams in history, teaching the right principles and installing the right values as the young Brisbane Bears of the early 1990’s became the powerhouse Brisbane Lions of the early 2000’s.

Half the triple premiership team learned their football under him, and all speak glowingly of his key early role. A father figure, mentor and friend to so many, he is a football person through and through.

He’s not all Lions. He was a 200-game triple premiership player and Team of the Century choice at Carlton, later a Carlton premiership coach and coach at Richmond.

But he is loved and admired by Lions people too, having ended his playing career with three years at Fitzroy from 1978 and coached Fitzroy for five years from 1981 before taking on the battling Bears on the Gold Coast in 1991.

It was a tough time but in his last game at the helm in 1995 he coached the Bears in their first final, watching with pride as they gave a real fright to a Carlton side that went on to win the flag in a canter.

Combined he coached a career total of 224 games at the Club – 115 with Fitzroy and 109 with the Bears.

Only the great Leigh Matthews boasts more. 

Later a respected and influential media figure, he has been a mentor to so many in the Lions family, always keen and willing to help.

As a member of the Hall of Fame selection panel he was too modest to accept nomination for a long time, but finally he came around and tonight, already an AFL Hall of Famer and a Carlton Hall of Fame legend, he takes his rightful place in the Brisbane Lions Hall of Fame … ROBERT WALLS.