Zach Tuohy shows stones of steel to kick match winner after siren had blown

Niall McIntyre

The Laois man is now one of Australia’s finest.

A former Leinster minor championship winner with Laois, Zach Tuohy made his move Down Under in 2008 and his has been a success story to top all other Irish explorers of the AFL.

The Portlaoise club man ripped it up with Carlton for six years before he made the move to his current side Geelong Cats in 2016, and now the man is at the absolute peak of his powers.

Over 150 senior appearances on from his debut way back in 2010, the 28-year-old with the impressive moustache showed all of the guile, composure and experience he’s well renowned for at this stage on Saturday morning.

With the clock ticking towards the final siren, Tuohy’s Cats were staring down the barrel of a narrow and painful four point League defeat to Melbourne.

With Tuohy on the pitch, they always had a chance, however.

When Geelong’s number 22 got on the ball with only ten seconds left on the clock, he knew the right thing, he knew the only thing to do was to fire it in the direction of the Leinster man and hope for the best.

Tuohy didn’t disappoint, gliding into the sky with all the grace of a man about to take flight into the night sky. His timing was absolute perfection as he met the ball at its highest point before calling a beautiful contested mark.

The mark entitles the player to a conversion from the spot and with the crowd whistling, the tension building, the Melbourne players dancing, Tuohy was the coolest man in the GMHBA Stadium to stun the demons and send the Cats wild.

ZACH TUOHY KICKS THE MATCH WINNER AFTER THE SIREN!#AFLCatsDees pic.twitter.com/0xknyuwHTL

— AFL (@AFL) July 21, 2018

That dead-eyed conversion was worth six and it turned the tables right at the death, securing a 100-98 victory for Geelong.

Where an awful lot of Irish struggle to assert themselves on the other side of the world, miss the home comforts and often return home after a year or two, it only serves to make Tuohy’s escapades in Australia all the more impressive.

Now he’s one of the best players in the Australian Football League and it’s clearly only better he’s getting.

Aidan O’Shea and Colm Parkinson were among those to hail Tuohy’s composure under pressure.