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 travelled to Ireland, looking for young, tall, and talented players. The first recruit was Sean 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. 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 arguably 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. 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. At the end of the 1988 season, Victoria Football Association (VFA) club Prahran enticed Dermot McNicholl, who had starred in two previous International rules series, to move to Melbourne. Two weeks later, St Kilda drafted him with the 99th selection in the 1988 VFL draft. In the same draft, Melbourne recruited two more Irish players, Jim Stynes' brother Brian and Tom Grehan. McNicholl spent the 1989 season playing for Prahran, before injury forced him to miss the first half of