During this time O'Connor also played representative basketball and had to make a decision on which sport to concentrate on, choosing soccer.

He then joined the Hakoah Club making his 1st grade appearance as a 17-year-old in a team with such players as John Watkiss, Danny Walsh, Ray Baartz, Alan Marnoch and Jimmy Mackay.

[1] In 1990 O'Connor was appointed assistant coach at the AIS men's football program where he coached Mark Viduka, Josip Skoko, Josip Simunic, Craig Moore, Kevin Muscat, Lucas Neill, Hayden Foxe, John Aloisi, and Clint Bolton.

During that time he was assistant coach with the U/17, U/20 and U/23 National Teams at various times and also the U/20 National Coach Between 1996 and 2008 Steve brought into the AIS and further developed Vince Grella, Mark Bresciano, Simon Colosimo, Josh Kennedy, Brett Emerton, Carl Valeri, James Holland, Billy Celevski, Nick Ward, Stu Musialik, Alex Brosque, Jobe Wheelhouse, Luke Wilkshire, Ljubo Milicevic, Michael Marrone, Nikolai Topor Stanley, Nathan Burns, Evan Berger, Kofi Danning, Rhyan Grant, Nikita Rukavytsya, Sebastian Ryall, Tando Velapi, Jimmy Downey and Mitchell Langerak.

On 17 April 2012, the Hong Kong Football Association announced that O'Connor would join as Technical Director, which he started in early May.