Max O’Halloran, a five-game Carlton backman in John Nicholls’ final season as Captain-Coach, and a giant of football in the Far North, has passed away in Cairns.
O’Halloran, aged 74, died unexpectedly at his home in Parramatta Park on Wednesday (July 15).
Hailing from Ulverstone on Tasmania’s northern coast, O’Halloran turned out for Footscray in 13 matches across three seasons from 1972. He joined Carlton in 1974, in a trade that saw the Bulldogs acquire the three-time Premiership wingman Ian Robertson.
Wearing the No.22 vacated by Neil Chandler and (now) Harry O’Farrell, the blond-haired and moustached O’Halloran first ran out in Dark Navy for the Round 15 contest with the then reigning Premier Richmond on the MCG, on an afternoon in which Alan Mangels also completed his Carlton senior debut.
The Richmond game was the first of O’Halloran’s five successive appearances – the last of them the Round 19 match with his old team the Bulldogs on the Western Oval. The late Robert Walls led O’Halloran and his fellow players out as newly-appointed captain, Nicholls having announced his retirement as a player the previous week.
In 1975 O’Halloran chased the leather for VFA club Oakleigh – as fate would have it alongside Robertson - but his football journey would take him to Cairns in the Far North where he forged a reputation built over five decades as a prominent player, Premiership coach and QAFL administrator.
O’Halloran was a force as a Captain-Coach, guiding North Cairns Tigers to two flags from 1979, and another in 1995 as Coach of Cairns Saints. An AFL Cairns board member from 1998 to 2007, O’Halloran championed the fortunes of the game in the region, chiefly in assisting with the removal of the debt owed on Cazaly Stadium.
A Life Member of both the North Cairns Football Club and AFL Cairns, O’Halloran was presented with a Merit Award in 2011, in recognition of his services to Queensland Football.
His commitment to community was also recognised as Patron of Cairns Bands and the Rondo Theatre and Life Member of Tobruk Pool, and form more than a decade he served as Councillor representing the regions of Edge Hill and Whitfield, as well as parts of Manoora, Manunda and Brinsmead.
During his time in office, Cr O’Halloran helped deliver $1.5billion in capital works projects to the city, including the Cairns Performing Arts Centre and Munro Parklands redevelopment.
A measure of the depth and breadth of O’Halloran’s great sense of community was put best by the former local Mayor Bob Manning, who told The Cairns Post: “No matter where you went with Max, he knew more people than you knew”.
“It’s rather fitting that he and Sam Neil (the late actor) are going together,” Manning said.
“They’ll give a bit of class to the mob up top.”
O'Halloran was the 848th player to represent the Carlton Football Club at senior level since Jimmy Aitken led the first team out in the opening Round of VFL competition in 1897.
