Graeme Killalea started his playing career with MCU in 1966 aged 16 with Arthur Cole a former Tasmanian State Rep as the coach. Graeme played his earliest games on a half back flank alongside Frank Slater, who was a former Richmond player and was the coach in 1965. When playing in the grand final that year, 1966, Frank Slater who was centre half back told Graeme to follow him as he would bust the packs and for Graeme to pick the ball up and kick it down the ground to his teammates.

Represented the Farrer League on numerous occasions and was a member of Tim Robb's Farrer team which defeated the South West Football League at Yerong Creek and was also a member of the first Farrer League team to represent this area in an interleave game against the Sydney Football League at Trumper Park Sydney.

Was invited to train at Hawthorn Football Club at Glenferrie Oval for a preseason in 1968. While training there he met Graham Jewell who was also at training and later became the coach of MCU in 1971. When training with Hawthorn, the coach John Kennedy stipulated that all players had to do 10 laps before joining training.

Finished his career by coaching and playing for 2 years in Reserves and took them to two grand finals, winning in 1984 and losing in 1958.

Retired after twenty years of playing football in 1986 and playing about 400 games and was fortunate to never sustain any serious injuries while playing.

In the 20 years of his football career, he only miss playing finals footy once in that time.

Quote from Graeme "Football gave tremendous enjoyment and satisfaction to me personally in my football career and made me realise that successful teams only come about when all players commit to themselves to achieving a common goal eg playing in the finals then winning Premierships. Train hard, play hard and win the hard games, the rest is easy."