club reached the finals after an extraordinary late-season recovery. After Round 15, the Bears were third-last on the ladder with four wins, and Robert Walls had announced his resignation as coach halfway through the season, but committed himself to seeing out the year. In Round 16, the Bears trailed Hawthorn by 45 points at three-quarter time, but mounted an astounding final-quarter comeback to win the match by 7 points; it was the largest final quarter comeback in league history. Brisbane then won five of its six remaining matches in the home-and-away season, including against Richmond and Essendon who were both in the top four, to just reach the finals for the first time, albeit with a win–loss record of only 10–12. The team was eliminated, but not disgraced, after losing its first ever final to eventual premiers Carlton by 13 points. Northey era Under the coaching of former Richmond premiership player John Northey, Brisbane had an excellent 1996 season, finishing third behind Sydney and North Melbourne. They made a good account of themselves in the finals, with two wins at Brisbane Cricket Ground and a loss in the Preliminary Final to eventual premiers North Melbourne. Michael Voss also became the only Brisbane Bears player to win the Brownlow Medal, sharing the honour with Essendon's James Hird. Brisbane Bears-Fitzroy Lions Merger However, the club was still struggling off-field. Brisbane came close to folding prior to its move to Brisbane and the AFL began preparing a contingency for the club's demise in the event that the move failed. The Bears made a bid in 1990 to take over a financially struggling Fitzroy but was voted down by Fitzroy's board. The AFL had offered the Bears $6 million to merge with Fitzroy. It offered Fiztroy a similar amount which could have enabled the club to pay off its debts and come out of administration. One of the Bears' biggest problems was its lack of support (both on and off the field) in Melbourne, the location of most of its away matches. In mid-1996, the struggling Fitzroy Lions collapsed due to financial pressures and was seeking to merge its assets with another club. When a merger with to form the North Fitzroy Kangaroos failed to win the support of the other AFL clubs, a deal for a merger was reached between Fitzroy and the Bears. The new team was to be known as the