The Carlton Football Club and the League football community are today mourning the passing of Robert Walls.
By Tony De Bolfo
The Carlton Football Club and the League football community are today mourning the passing at 74 of one of the game’s great servants, the Blues’ three-time premiership player and premiership coach Robert Walls.
Walls’ tenure as a player and coach across four clubs, and as a respected commentator across television, radio and print, spanned some six decades. But it was at Carlton that the AFL Life Member and Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee savoured his greatest individual and collective footballing moments.
On-field, Walls was part of the drought-breaking Grand Final victory over Essendon in 1968, the incredible come-from-behind Grand Final triumph over Collingwood in 1970, and the winning Grand Final shootout with Richmond in 1972. Off-field as Senior Coach, he commandeered Stephen Kernahan and his players to Carlton’s penultimate premiership, when they prevailed in the heat against Hawthorn on Grand Final day 1987.
Born in the Central Victorian goldfields town of Dunolly, but raised in the inner-city northern suburb of Brunswick, Walls supported Essendon in his childhood and at the age of eight was famously snapped by a photographer chasing an autograph from his idol Alec Epis.
As fate would have it, Walls was residentially tied to Carlton through its metropolitan zone and in the summer of 1966, on the strength of some creditable performances for Coburg Amateurs, the tall, gangly 15 year-old accepted an invitation to train and peddled his pushbike to Princes Park.
There he met another hopeful, a kid from Jacana by the name of Alexander Bruce Doull.
By the winter of ’66, Walls and the likes of Doug Baird and Peter Dyring were earning Reserve Grade call-ups from the thirds. The Club’s Reserves report of that year records that “a notable performance was that of Robert Walls, who despite his youth was adjudged the second best and fairest and best first year player. Robert’s play at full-back during the season was admired by many”.
Wearing the No.42 on his sinewy back, Walls, at 16 years 275 days, was pencilled in at full-forward for his first Carlton senior appearance, the Round 2 match of 1967 against Hawthorn at Princes Park – co-incidentally the same match in which the legendary full-forward Peter Hudson first ran out for the visitors.
Carlton won by 44 points with a scoreline of 12.16 – two goals of which came from ‘Wallsy’s’ trusty right boot, the first of them with his first kick. A further six senior appearances followed in ‘67, and by season’s end the slightly framed teenager found his way to the back pocket, sharing the last line with a couple of hardnuts in Wes Lofts and Ian Collins.
Under the great Ron Barassi’s watch as Carlton captain-coach, Walls the footballer thrived. As he said on the night of his elevation to Legend status in the Carlton Football Hall of Fame in 2011: “Ron Barassi was my hero as a 16-year-old kid and he still is my hero”.
In 1968, Walls featured in each of Carlton’s 20 home and away contests, plus the semi and Grand Finals, as Barassi’s Blues barnstormed their way to a premiership – Carlton’s first in the 21 years since Fred Stafford’s snap sealed the Bombers’ fate.
Two years later, as the mainstay at centre half-forward, he was amongst that exclusive group to have somehow transformed a 44-point deficit into a 10-point triumph over good old Collingwood before a never-to-be-surpassed audience of more than 121,000 people.
While most would succumb to nerves on football’s day of days, it was the steadying words of Barassi’s mentor Norm Smith that rang in Walls’ ears as he headed into football immortality.
“It goes back to a couple of years before ’70 – to ’68 when most of us were playing in our first Grand Final. Ron Barassi took us to Norm Smith’s home,” Walls told this reporter in 2020.
“I remember Norm telling us that when you run down the race and you hit the ground, put your head up, throw your chest out and take it all in. Say to yourself, ‘I’m here because I deserve to be here, because I’m part of a good team and I’m going to show everybody just what a good player I am and what a good team we are.’”
Walls followed Smith’s edict to the letter, setting up a Ted Hopkins running goal with a carefully-measured handball, and putting another over the goal umpire’s hat after selling the candy to Ted Potter – in what was a rush of seven majors in a frenetic 11-minute period of the third quarter.
For all that though, Walls’s greatest hour was yet to come. That happened on Grand Final day 1972, when the seasoned centre half-forward, earning Rex Hunt as his direct opponent, booted six goals of a record 28.9 – as the Blues overwhelmed Richmond in a famous victory masterminded by captain-coach John Nicholls.
“‘Wallsy’ moved around a lot on the field, he had pretty good goal sense and his six-goal game in the ’72 Grand Final was masterful,” said David McKay, who shared the 1970 and ’72 triumphs with his old teammate.
“I think it was probably his best game for the Club, and Peter Jones’ showing in the ruck was equally valuable.”
As his No.43 locker adjoined Walls’ at 42, McKay was impeccably placed to pass judgment on the player and the man.
“As a centre half-forward, Wallsy was a terrific exponent of punching the ball backwards so that the small forwards could get it. He was a very courageous player and he stood up for himself, which was very impressive. He was one of those teammates who made you walk taller. I wouldn’t say he was ruthless, but he didn’t cop any s**t. He was more forthright as a coach and commentator, but I never experienced that.
“Because he was part of the ’68 premiership team, Wallsy was regarded as more of a senior player when I started, even though he was younger than me. That was because he and the likes of ‘Nick’ (John Nicholls) and ‘Serge (Sergio Silvagni) broke the Premiership duck after 21 years.
“One of the things I always admired about him was his ability to say the right thing at the right time. He was a statesman.
“‘Wallsy’ was a loyal and respected teammate, and one of the most talented players ever to turn out at Carlton. He was consistent and he gave his all. Even though he went to other clubs, he was Carlton through and through, because Barassi and Jack Wrout instilled in him and in all of us that the Club was greater than the individual.”
By the mid-1970s, Walls’ reputation as a big-game player in the most demanding of on-field positions was assured – and his goalkicking returns of 59.43 and 55.43 topped the Club’s honours in 1975 and ’76 respectively. The following year, Walls’ leadership attributes were acknowledged with his elevation to the captaincy, but by late 1977 Carlton was a place beset by player rumblings and discontent, and the team failed to contest finals that season.
In the immediate aftermath of Ian Thorogood’s sacking as Carlton coach, Ian Stewart was appointed Thorogood’s successor, but amid a toxic environment Stewart found the task no easier. Amid the chaos, and following the Round 5 match with South Melbourne in 1978, Walls resolved that his future as a League footballer laid elsewhere. Reluctantly, the Club with which he’d been associated for almost half his life acquiesced – and at 27 and in his prime Walls was cleared to Fitzroy.
Walls significantly contributed to the Lions’ fortunes in a further 41 matches, pairing with Bernie Quinlan in the Lions’ front half – and when a chronic knee condition put paid to his on-field career he accepted the role of coach. As an acknowledged coaching innovator (he famously concocted the dispersing player huddle to transition the ball quickly from the kick-in), Walls commandeered the Lions to the finals in three of his five years at the helm.
In late 1985, Walls returned to Princes Park as Senior Coach, in a swap which saw Carlton coach David Parkin replace him in the role at Fitzroy. For Walls, the timing couldn’t have been better – the Blues having completed a recruiting coup with the signings of Craig Bradley, Jon Dorotich, Peter Motley and Stephen Kernahan.
As Carlton coach, Walls was both brutal and uncompromising with his players, and his relationships with some were irreparably damaged. But his unswerving faith in others bore handsome reward.
One was David Rhys-Jones, the gifted if highly strung wingman whom Walls assigned the unlikely task of negating Hawthorn centre half-forward Dermott Brereton on Grand Final day 1987. Rhys-Jones emerged the Norm Smith Medallist for his close-checking role on Brereton on that sweltering Saturday afternoon, thus vindicating Walls’ courage of conviction as Premiership coach.
Another was Kernahan, whom Walls anointed as captain that very year. Some questioned the timing, but Walls was in no doubt, declaring Kernahan on a par with Brisbane’s Michael McLean as the best person he’d ever met in the game – and so it was that Kernahan led, earning across-the-board respect as the greatest on and off-field leader Carlton ever had.
In his 1997 autobiography ‘Sticks’, Kernahan referred to Walls as a both a hard taskmaster and a great coach.
“He opened my eyes with his attention to game plan and team strategies. We had set-ups for boundary throw-ins, centre bounces and moving the ball out of defence. There were also, in particular, different forms of forward set-ups . . .
“ . . . Wallsy got the best out of us as a group of players . . . (and he) certainly got the best out of me. I’ve got no doubt he helped mould me from a young, skinny South Australian footballer into a competitive VFL player more rapidly than I could have hoped or imagined.”
The 1987 premiership – a premiership earned in a year in which the Club was rocked by the twin tragedies of Des English and Peter Motley – rounded out Walls’s grand career at Carlton. Fate would ultimately lead him elsewhere after coach and club parted company in mid-1989, and Walls’s long and valued contributions beyond Princes Park will no doubt be detailed in other media forums.
Not surprisingly, Walls was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2006 – but in the chronicles of Carlton history his name is forever etched, as a Team of the Century Member, Hall of Fame Legend and one of only five men to complete the playing/coaching premiership double since the Club’s admission to the VFL.
For all that he achieved at the Carlton Football Club, Walls was forever thankful. As he once said: “‘Barass’ was my first coach for six seasons, then John Nicholls for the next four. I played in five Grand Finals by the age of 23 and I played alongside some of the great names who 40 years later are still legends, such as John Nicholls, Alex Jesaulenko and Bruce Doull”.
Walls faced his final days with extraordinary courage and a remarkable perspective. He took time to reflect on a life well-lived and was able to share his farewells with the many, many players, officials and media representatives whom he had met along the way. As he said: “I’ve had a wonderful life”.
On learning of Walls’s untimely passing, Kernahan paid tribute to a person he deeply admired both within and outside the League football fraternity.
“When I came to Carlton, ‘Wallsy’ drove me to get the best out of myself, and I’d do anything for him,” Kernahan said.
“He was a hard man – how would he go coaching the kids today? – but I loved that hardness in him. He was also ahead of his time, a real visionary.
“‘Wallsy’ was a great mentor and friend to me, and I’m shattered I’m not going to see him again.”
A few weeks ago, Walls graciously bequeathed to the Carlton Football Club each of his four premiership medallions (1968, 1970, 1972 (as a player) and 1987 (as coach)), as well as the AFL’s Jock McHale Medal, which in 2001 was retrospectively awarded to him as a premiership coach.
Those medals are now on display in the front-of-house Museum at IKON Park.
Robert Walls
July 21, 1950 – May 15, 2025
AT CARLTON
218 games, 367 goals 1967–1978
First game: Round 2, 1967 vs Hawthorn, aged 16 years, 275 days
Last Game: Round 5, 1978 vs South Melbourne, aged 27 years, 282 days
Premiership Player: 1968, 1970 & 1972 (adjudged Best on Ground)
Captain: 1977-1978
Leading Club Goalkicker: 1975 (59), 1976 (55)
Premiership Coach: 1987
Hall of Fame: inducted 1990, elevated to Legend 2011
Team of the 20th Century: (named on interchange) 1999