Irish Experiment - History - Beginnings of The Irish Experiment

Beginnings of The Irish Experiment

Ron Barassi, drawing comparisons between Australian rules football and Gaelic football was of the opinion that Gaelic Footballers could provide a previously untapped pool of potential Australian Rules players. At the time, Australian Rules was, with the introduction of the Sydney Swans, increasing its national focus and emerging from a semi-professional sport to a fully professional one. As a result, wealthy Victorian clubs were scouting the country far and wide for new talent to gain an advantage in the sport's premier competition. In 1982, Barassi (then the Melbourne VFL club coach) and his recruiting team including Melbourne's Barry Richardson traveled to Ireland, looking for young, tall, and talented players.

The first recruit was Sean Wight. Further advertising resulted in the recruitment of a "tall, skinny lad", Jim Stynes. Both Wight and Stynes, still very much learning the game, played together in the club's 1987 night premiership. While Stynes captured the Melbourne reserves best and fairest that year, he also involved in an embarrassing event which cast doubts on the Irish experiment. His lack of understanding of the rules single-handedly cost Melbourne a berth in the 1987 VFL Grand Final. The infamous Preliminary Final incident in which he ran over the mark before the siren made him and the Irish experiment the focus of Melbourne media. The mistake awarded Hawthorn’s Gary Buckenara a 15 metre penalty which resulted in a winning goal to qualify for the Grand Final. Despite the setback, Stynes and Wight were both to improve in the following seasons and become regular senior players.

Other clubs watched the Irish experiment's mixed bag of success and failure warily. St Kilda was the only other club to attempt to convert a gaelic footballer, Dermot McNicholl. McNicholl's decision to return home after 3 matches with the club helped to fuel the notion that the Irish experiment would attract few stayers.

Despite the Melbourne Football Club's enthusiasm for the Irish experiment and early success with some Irish players, the majority of players from the Irish Experiment did not fare as well. Most failed to meet expectations, not make VFL level, and many instead returned home to Ireland.

Wight and Stynes both featured in the 1988 VFL Grand Final. However despite high expectations Melbourne was convincingly thrashed by Hawthorn, then the dominant club of the era. However, Stynes was voted best on field for the Demons. Hawthorn's emerging champion Dermott Brereton, of Irish descent, dominated from centre-half forward with a haul of 5 goals.

A much improved Jim Stynes won the Brownlow Medal in 1991, elevating him in the elite category of players for many years to come. However the rare successes were increasingly seen as "one offs" and other clubs showed little enthusiasm with the "hit and miss" strategy. Melbourne, the trailblazer club was not translating recruitment into onfield success and was fast losing financial resources that were required to sustain international recruitment. As a result, few AFL clubs recruited Gaelic footballers played at the highest level in the 1990s. Even the recruitment of Jim Stynes' brother Brian yielded just a handful of unimpressive senior games.

With the increasing professionalism of the AFL competition, some clubs continued to speculate about the overseas talent pool. Kevin Sheedy in particular conducted a series of his own experiments with overseas players from various sporting backgrounds, but did not include Ireland or gaelic football. Despite generating media publicity, none of these experiments were ultimately successful and increasingly sections of the Australian media began to mock the idea of international recruitment.