Mr Frank O'Callaghan

One of Queensland’s leading newspaper and television journalists of the modern era, Frank O’Callaghan carried a special flag for rugby union and at retirement in 1990 was voted the doyen of rugby writers by his peers.

Originally from Toowoomba, he did two tours of Papua New Guinea with the Australian Air Force and began his journalism career at the Toowoomba Downs Star. Worked at The Courier-Mail from 1957-90, covering rugby, cricket, boxing, golf, surf lifesaving, athletics and swimming.

Also wrote several books and was a television pioneer on Channel 7’s ‘Sportscene’. But his passion was rugby – hence the nickname ‘Frank O’Rugby’. He enjoyed the Queensland rugby team’s rise from whipping boy status to one of the world’s great provincial powers in the late 1970s, and advocated so strongly for the running game that he was a factor in the Australian Rugby Union’s 1972 decision to increase the value of a try from three points to four.

He died in 1997 aged 73.