Aussie rules giant Zach Tuohy: ‘How could you, in all good conscience, try and stop young players doing what I did?’

Zach Tuohy has a stat which sounds like it can’t be true. He tells me that for every professional playing in the Australian Football League (AFL) in the Melbourne area, there are two journalists. For a professional in the AFL, it might feel like there is never-ending scrutiny.

“The coverage is kind of what pays your bills but it can get a bit overbearing at times,” Tuohy tells me on a Zoom call from his home in Geelong, a port city an hour outside Melbourne. The Portlaoise native lives there with his Australian wife Bec and their two sons, Flynn and Rafferty, who are 10 and five..