The Irish Experiment is the popular name for the interest, primarily fromVFL/AFL clubs, in bringing Irish sportspeople, particularlyGaelic footballers, to Australia to playAustralian rules football professionally.^[1][2] The AFL's focus on Gaelic footballers is due to thesimilarities between the sports.

The Irish Experiment began in the mid-1980s as an informal project of theMelbourne Football Club.^[3] Despite its initial success, enthusiasm for the project lapsed until the 2000s, when it again became ongoing,^[4][5][6][7] reaching a record level due toglobalisation and professionalism in sport; however, it also faced significant challenges due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.^[8]

The highest-profile product of the experiment to date has beenMedal of the Order of Australia and 1991Brownlow Medal recipientJim Stynes, who was an early recruit in 1984, during his highly successful career he played more AFL games than any other Irish player.Tadhg Kennelly was the first to win a premiership in2005.

Over the years, the Irish experiment has attracted media and public interest in both Ireland^{[4][9][10][11][12]} and Australia.^[13] As of 2022, five men recruited from Ireland reached 100 AFL games, though the majority have returned having experienced minimal success in Australia. Since 2018 Irish women have become a major source of talent for the professionalAFL Women's competition, with almost an entire team's worth of players participating in the 2020 season. To date, a handful of these recruits have experienced accolades, including first premiership playerAilish Considine, first Irish All-AustralianOrla O'Dwyer and notable goalkickerCora Staunton.

One of the first gaelic footballers to convert to Australian rules was Eugene King, who arrived in Australia in 1956 and was invited to train with theFootscray Football Club^[14] however he had difficulty with the shape of the ball and did not make the grade.

In 1967,Harry Beitzel drew inspiration from watching the 1966All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final on television and formed an Australian side, nicknamed "TheGalahs", to play the game against anIrish side. The next year he organisedThe Australian Football World Tour, a six-match series with games played against Irish teams in Ireland, the United Kingdom and United States of America. What followed was the beginning of regular interaction between the two codes which was to become the hybrid code ofInternational Rules Football.

Ron Barassi, drawingcomparisons 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.^[15] At the time, Australian Rules was, with the introduction of theSydney 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 theMelbourne VFL club coach) and his recruiting team (including Melbourne'sBarry Richardson) travelled to Ireland, looking for young, tall, and talented players.^[3]

The first recruit wasSean Wight. Wight was part of an Under-19 VFL premiership side just weeks after his arrival from Ireland in 1983 and was widely hailed for his rapid conversion, though others who joined him had much less success.^[16] Further advertising resulted in the recruitment of a "tall, skinny lad",Jim Stynes.^[3][9] Both Wight and Stynes, still very much learning the game, played together in the club's1987 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 arguably cost Melbourne a berth in the1987 VFL Grand Final.^[17] The infamous Preliminary Final incident in which he ran over themark before the siren made him and the Irish experiment the focus of Melbourne media. The mistake awarded Hawthorn'sGary 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.^[18]

Wight and Stynes both featured in the1988 VFL Grand Final. However, despite high expectations, Melbourne was convincingly thrashed byHawthorn, then the dominant club of the era. However, Stynes was voted best on field for the Demons.

At the end of the 1988 season,Victoria Football Association (VFA) clubPrahran enticedDermot McNicholl, who had starred in two previousInternational rules series, to move to Melbourne.^[19] Two weeks later,St Kilda drafted him with the 99th selection in the1988 VFL draft. In the same draft, Melbourne recruited two more Irish players, Jim Stynes' brotherBrian andTom Grehan.^[20] McNicholl spent the 1989 season playing for Prahran, before injury forced him to miss the first half of the 1990 season, after which he recovered and made his senior debut for St Kilda. He played three senior games^[21] before returning to Ireland to complete his university studies.^[22]

A much-improved Jim Stynes won theBrownlow Medal in1991, cementing his place as a futureMelbourne andAFL Hall of Famer.^[23] 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 on-field success and was fast losing financial resources that were required to sustain international recruitment. As a result, only a few AFL clubs recruited Gaelic footballers who played at the highest level in the 1990s.^{[citation needed]} It was later Stynes' post-playing career as Melbourne president that helped the club eliminate A$5 million in debt in two years, leaving the club A$400,000 in surplus. The Demons had been in debt for thirty years.^[24]

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. Even the recruitment of Jim Stynes' brother Brian yielded just a handful of unimpressive senior games, and McNicholl returned home after only 3 matches.^[25]

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.

The Irish experiment lay dormant for many years until Melbourne once again began to take an interest in it. The Sydney Swans followed with the recruitment ofTadhg Kennelly through its rookie list. Kennelly was an almost overnight success, being nominated for theAFL Rising Star award in his first season and widely hailed by the media. As a result, other clubs began to show a much keener interest in Irish talent.^{[citation needed]}

With access to additional resources, AFL clubs began to spend more time and effort in identifying and training athletic and talented rookies.Collingwood,Carlton andBrisbane in particular began to show an interest and held scouting sessions and tryouts for Irish players.

Carlton soon followed, and its experiments withSetanta andAisake Ó hAilpín began to bear fruit and attract significant media interest in both Australia and Ireland. These experiments were of particular note, as for the first time a club was looking to other sports than Gaelic football, by identifying talentedhurling athletes with the right ingredients to become AFL players.

With Gaelic footballerColm Begley's rapid conversion at Brisbane andMartin Clarke's successful AFL debut, media commentators hailed a new era for the Irish experiment. During the2007 AFL season, several AFL clubs began sending talent scouts to Ireland.

In March 2008, it was revealed by the media that the AFL had considered a radical proposal to launch an Irish-dominated team in Sydney's western suburbs, which would perform before an international audience under the Celtic brand name. The "Sydney Celtics" plan was first put to AFL chief executiveAndrew Demetriou in early 2007 byGaelic Players Association executive Donal O'Neill. It was said that the proposal originated at theInternational Rules Series in Ireland in late 2006, where O'Neill put forward a plan to purchase an AFL licence in Sydney. However, the AFL later dismissed it as simple speculation.^[26]

By mid-2008, the interest of clubs reached a peak, and Tadhg Kennelly and Jim Stynes spoke out about the increasing recruitment activity. AFL player managerRicky Nixon set up recruitment networks in Ireland to complement those already in place by clubs such as Collingwood, Carlton and Brisbane.^[7]Nickey Brennan, theGAA boss, spoke out against the recruitment activity in June 2008.^[10] The AFL and GAA had ongoing discussions about putting limits on the recruitment of players.^[11]

Despite the rise of former hurler Setanta Ó hAilpín in the AFL, recruitment interest in Ireland began to wane in mid-2010. Several Irish players cancelled their rookie contracts to return home; others were delisted after brief bouts in the various state leagues.

With amedia circus surrounding the conversion of professional Australianrugby league playersKarmichael Hunt to theGold Coast Football Club andIsrael Folau to theGreater Western Sydney Giants, focus began to shift to other sports, particularlyrugby football as a potential source of talent. With the success of Canadianrugby union playerMike Pyke's conversion and many other players transitioning at the junior level, the AFL and commentators began to speculate that professional rugby league players might make an easier transition to the AFL due to coming from a heavy-contact professional sport involving an oval ball.^[27] The transition of two highly publicised rugby league players has since proved to be of little success,^[28] and the cross-code focus of AFL recruiters has returned to the GAA^[29] and expanded to include American professional sportsmen.^[30]

In particular, the firstAFL International Combine was held in the United States targeting college basketballers and college footballers was particularly successful, eventually producing such AFL-listed Americans asEric Wallace,Jason Holmes andMason Cox.^[31]

In 2015, theAFL appointedTadhg Kennelly, a former player for theSydney Swans, as its International Talent Manager; and, in addition to theUS Combine, Kennelly organised a specialEuropean Combine to be held inDublin. As expected, the large proportion of the turn-out were Gaelic footballers.^[32] The two best-performing participants at the combine are then given the opportunity to attend the AFL National Combine.Sean Hurley,Paddy Brophy,Daniel Flynn,Ciarán Byrne,Ciarán Sheehan andCian Hanley are some notable people who have previously attended the combine.^[33]

In 2018, the Irish contingent in the AFL consisted of five senior-listed players and six rookie-listed players.

The2020 AFL Grand Final featured two players:Zach Tuohy andMark O'Connor.^[34] Both were playing for Geelong but the team lost the game to Richmond.

On 20 June 2020,Conor McKenna of Essendon tested positive for the highly infectious novel coronavirus diseaseCOVID-19. This resulted in the postponement of the match scheduled for the following day betweenEssendon andMelbourne.^[35] One other player was quarantined due to close contact during training. McKenna had another COVID-19 test on 22 June which was confirmed as negative in the evening of 23 June. He remained in quarantine pending a further test later in the week.^[36] During this time McKenna was subjected to an intense trial by media, abuse on social media and became a public villain in the country, treatment which provoked much criticism.^[37] On 8 September 2020, McKenna announced his retirement and return to Ireland after 79 games played.^[38] Geelong footballerZach Tuohy described the official and media abuse directed at McKenna as "disgraceful" and "outrageous".^[39] In Ireland, it was also suggested "stars of the future that may being [sic] tempted to pursue a life in the AFL Down Under, may reconsider".^[40]

This list includes any player who at minimum (regardless of whether he ever went to Australia or played actual VFL/AFL matches) meets any one of the following criteria:

a) brought to Australia by an AFL club

b) spent time training with an AFL club

c) played in an AFL club's affiliated state league club or AFL practice match

d) offered an AFL contract by a club

e) listed on an AFL rookie or senior list

The following players from the Irish experiment have either played a VFL/AFL game, or are currently^[when?] on an AFL list.

The following players have been connected with a VFL/AFL club, but never played a senior game.

As of 2018/2019 theAFLW was actively recruitingladies Gaelic footballers^[95][96] primarily due to the success ofLaura Duryea who originally found success in the sport while travelling in Australia, and recent increase in the success rate of the men's programs.

• List of players who have converted from one football code to another
• Comparison of Australian rules football and Gaelic football
• Australian rules football in Ireland

• Comparison of Gaelic football and Australian rules football
• History of Australian rules football
• Gaelic football
• Lists of players of Australian rules football
• Lists of Gaelic football players

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