As Laois bow out Tuohy makes Carlton debut

WHILE his former team-mates were bowing out to Dublin the Leinster championship Portlaoise’s Zach Tuohy was basking in glory after making his AFL debut.

Tuohy came on in the third quarter and joined Setanta Ó hÁilpín in Carlton’s 62-point win over Port Adelaide in the twilight clash at AAMI Stadium on Sunday.

Carlton led by three points at half-time but Tuohy made a huge difference when he came on for the injured Michael Jamison.

The Irishman’s eyes lit up when he saw space in front of him on the wing in the dying seconds of the third term. He took off running, but was caught out by the oval-shaped ball when he tried to take a bounce.

The ball jumped up sharply and hit him in the head, costing him a shot at goal and his first possession in the AFL.

However, he has impressed his management team with his performances

“Gerard Sholly, who does a lot of work for us in Ireland, identified two players for us at the end of 2008: Ciaran Sheehan from Cork and Zach Tuohy from Laois,” said manager Stephen Icke.

“Ciaran Sheehan is a young star of the competition over there, he’s playing county football for Cork, he was the junior footballer of the year. Young Zach, he was playing minor football in Laois, didn’t play for his county and we thought that what we would do is bring them both over together, but what’s happened is Ciaran decided to stay in Ireland and Zach came over probably a year later than we’d looked to bring them across.

“The good thing about that though was Zach had a football back in Ireland and at every opportunity he was out kicking the ball, so he’s become an elite kick on both sides of his body because he spent a year in Ireland just practicing.

“That hard work over there has paid off because in 18 months basically we’re now seeing him play his first game of AFL football.”