Tohill was recruited in 1990 to the under-19s from the junior Gaelic football ranks in Derry. Like Jim Stynes, who was then approaching his mid-20s and in his fourth season as a senior player with the Demons, would-be defender Tohill was tall, strong and hungry for success.
A broken leg caused him to miss seven months of the season but, undeterred, he recovered to play half a season with the reserves. Midway through 1991, the AFL’s restructuring of the league saw the under-19s dissolve, essentially culling a list of 90 or so players to 45.
Tohill, who had enrolled in a double degree engineering and business administration course at RMIT – costing the club around $30,000 a year in international student fees, plus board and living allowance – hadn’t made senior grade and was subsequently released.
Melbourne’s loss soon became Ireland’s gain. Aside from a preliminary final berth in 1994, the Demons didn’t capitalise on the promise of the late 1980s, finishing in the bottom half of the ladder from 1992 to 1997, culminating in a wooden spoon.
Tohill, meanwhile, returned to Ireland and went straight into the senior team in Derry. Two years later he played in Derry’s All-Ireland Championship-winning side. He won four All-Stars Awards – the Gaelic Athletic Association’s equivalent of All-Australian selection – and played eight International Rules tests for Ireland in four successive series from 1998. He captained his country during the 2001 series win.
Recently in Australia as assistant coach of the Irish International Rules team, Tohill admits that his undiscovered fate as an AFL footballer still burns a little.
“I suppose I felt I probably didn’t get enough time to develop and to learn the game, and that was disappointing because I went to Australia to be a success and to make it as an AFL player,” Tohill says.
Tohill’s coach at Melbourne, John Northey, who became Richmond coach in 1993, saw the Demons’ mistake and attempted to lure the young Irishman to Punt Road. The following year Ron Barassi, instrumental in recruiting Stynes to Melbourne, pursued Tohill on behalf of the Sydney Swans, and in 1996 Melbourne approached him again to come back and play with the Demons.
“I think the Melbourne Football Club probably saw that they released me a bit earlier than they should have,” Tohill says.
Tohill’s Gaelic football career was well on-track, and it would be seven years after leaving Melbourne that he would return to Australia.
“Definitely, [I was determined] to come back in the International Rules Series and I suppose to show them they’d made an error in their judgement.”
Stynes remembers a promising young player in Tohill.
“At the time I remember thinking that this kid should make it. He was a pretty talented guy; he was tall, still growing and he had a good engine on him. It seemed to me that he’d eventually make it, but it wasn’t to be.”
Stynes says letting Tohill go was a decision the club later regretted.
“I think they did a lot to try and get him back later on – four, five years later when we were struggling for a key tall defender,” he says.
While Stynes was faced with being ‘let go’ after his second year with the club, he was sent to VFL club Prahran to develop his skills, instead of returning to Ireland.
Melbourne’s winning streak at the end of 1987, combined with the retirement of dual Brownlow Medallist ruckman Peter Moore, gave Stynes the opportunity to play out the season as a senior player. He went on to hold the VFL/AFL record for the most number of consecutive games played, 244 over a 10-year period, and equal the club record of four best and fairest awards.
“I came back in the third year and then made it – I think Anthony probably would have as well. But they didn’t persist enough and I think at the time they were making a decision between (Stynes’ brother) Brian and him, and they decided to keep Brian because it was costing them less.”
Brian Stynes made his debut in 1992 but returned to Ireland after playing just two senior games.
Tohill believes his own story underlines the importance for the heightened interest in Ireland’s talent pool to be translated into a greater commitment from clubs.
“When I was there the game was only semi-professional at that time. You trained a couple of times a week and you played on the weekend and there was very little one-on-one coaching,” he says.
“There’s no point in bringing these lads over if you’re not going to spend a lot of time developing them and to make them into senior AFL players.”
