Amanda O’Halloran has a long and proud history across many roles with the Wattles Warriors Rugby League Football Club and other organisations.
Amanda has been at the helm of the Wattles Club since 2019. Since stepping into the demanding role, Amanda has guided the 60-year-old Clifton-based sporting organisation through a period of success on and off the field.
Under her presidency, Wattles won the 2022 Toowoomba Rugby League A Grade premiership, with the Reserve Grade team qualifying for the 2022 Grand Final.
In 2025, the Wattles A Grade team enjoyed another successful season by qualifying for the grand final, while the Reserve Grade team competed admirably in the Toowoomba Rugby League finals series.
Amanda has completed more than six-and-a-half years as Wattles president and will continue in the role in 2026.
She is Wattles’ longest serving president and the longest standing female club president in Toowoomba Rugby League history, which spans more than a century.
Amanda’s focus and astute direction have seen Wattles install state-of-the-art field lighting for the Platz Oval complex at the Clifton Recreation Facility. The new lights replaced lighting that was more than 40 years old.
The new lights, which cost more than $430,000, were officially turned on for the side’s Anzac Day fixture.
While predominantly used by the Wattles Rugby League Football Club, the lighting will benefit other community organisations using the Platz Oval facilities, including Wattles Junior Rugby League club, the Clifton Show Society, the Central Downs Junior Rugby League, Toowoomba Rugby League Referees’ Association, the Clifton Scout Group and the Downs Polo Club along with other groups.
Amanda is continuing her family’s long and devoted association with Wattles and the Clifton community. Her connection stems from links forged by her family (the Bowes of Clifton) and that of her late husband and former Wattles senior grade player, Michael O’Halloran and his family (O’Halloran’s of Clifton district).
Amanda has been an active volunteer with Wattles since the mid-1980s, having been judged Wattles Rugby League Club Princess in 1989.
She started as a club cheerleader in the late 1970s and early 1980s with her sister, Catherine, and cousins. She later graduated to roles covering club committee member, assistant secretary and assistant treasurer. This was paired with volunteer roles selling raffle tickets, canteen duties, clubhouse bar duties, clubhouse cleaning, club apparel, promotions and fundraising events.
Amanda also chipped in with ground preparations, such as marking, irrigating and mowing at Clifton and Allora.
She also held club support positions on the joint Wattles senior/junior clubs’ clubhouse committee and the Clifton Recreation Ground committee with other sporting groups.
Amanda served as Wattles senior vice president in 2018 and 2019, before taking on the president role in mid-2019.
She performs her duties to the highest level as the club’s leader, go-to person and representative on the Toowoomba Rugby League.
Regardless of the president’s badge, Amanda performs tasks at all levels on match days along with running the club week in week out, all while operating a successful business in Binny Bowe Boutique in Clifton and online.
She steps forward as a major sponsor of the club in addition to sponsoring other causes in the Wattles Allora-Clifton community.
For a decade in the 2000/2010s, Amanda was secretary of the Queensland Rugby League South West Division Juniors.
Amanda has also been active with the Wattles Junior Rugby League club for some years prior to 2018, as a team official and a coach.
She also played a role in introducing a girls’ rugby league team, with involvement as an organiser and coach.
Her support of girls’ and women’s rugby league/league tag has been pivotal in the possible formation of a Wattles women's rugby league team to compete in the Toowoomba Rugby League in 2026 for the first time in the club's 60-year history. Her daughter, Chloe, is a player.
When recognised by the Wattles Rugby League Club with Life Membership in 2023, Amanda could boast almost 40 years’ involvement with the club.
