A pivotal decision in the history of the club.
Wally truly was like royalty to the Queensland public at the time and the sacking turned Wayne Bennett into the most unpopular bloke in Brisbane until of course he achieved success.
Essentially, the way Bennett describes it in his second biography 'The Man In The Mirror' there was a variety of reasons. Firstly, and most important was the gap between him and the younger players. Wally cut an imposing figure at training and since he wasn't the best trainer a lot of his bad habits would rub off on the younger players. This is why Wayne recruited a lot of players from Canberra, particularly Peter Jackson because he knew he'd be a great influence on the club off the field. Which he was, particularly on Gene Miles, which is why Geno was given the Broncos captaincy in 1990.
From there, Wally just had too many issues with injuries & the Broncos couldn't afford his salary on the current cap. With the emergence of Kevin Walters, who was a revelation in 1990, the club trusted in it's younger generation to take the club forward.
Which they well and truly did.
This wasn't the first time Bennett opted to play a relative unknown over a legend. Kerrod Walters made his debut starting over Conescu, he would then go onto make his Origin and Test debut that same year.
