Like his Glenelg premiership teammate
Stephen Kernahan, McGuinness then accepted the invitation to play in the more lucrative
Victorian Football League. He was drafted as early as 1981 by as the tenth choice in the first ever VFL draft, but the Cats could never convince McGuinness to move to Victoria, so their hold lapsed by 1984. McGuinness was then signed by
Footscray and quickly justified his huge reputation. In five seasons at the Bulldogs, McGuinness missed only one game and consistently racked up many possessions, usually distributing it with precision by hand or by his trusty left foot. He stood out in an otherwise mediocre team, especially in wet weather, and won the
club best and fairest award in 1987. After a particularly fine
1990 season, in which he was a key member of the Bulldogs' revival, McGuinness decided to return to
South Australia in 1991 to play with the newly formed
Adelaide Crows. He was appointed the club's first vice-captain and holds the honour of both captaining The Crows in their first ever game (a pre-season trial game win over in front of over 45,000 at
Football Park) and of kicking the first-ever goal for Adelaide in the AFL season proper against , again at Footy Park. McGuinness was Vice-Captain of the Crows for that game with former Glenelg teammate
Chris McDermott taking over as captain. He would remain the Crows' vice-captain from 1991 until 1994. In
1993, Adelaide made the finals for the first time, only to lose to eventual premiers Essendon in a famous Preliminary Final. Adelaide led The Bombers by 42 points at half-time but Essendon came back to win their way into the
1993 AFL Grand Final against by 11 points. McGuinness had an outstanding season, racking up 657 disposals (477 kicks, 180 handballs, the highest disposal count in his 11-year AFL career), and was recognised with his third
All-Australian selection. After finishing second in both
1991 and
1992, McGuinness won the
Crows Club Champion award as Adelaide's best and fairest player in 1993. He became captain for the
1995 and
1996 seasons but along with a number of other older and experienced players, he was delisted at end of the 1996 season by newly appointed Crows coach
Malcolm Blight, ending his AFL playing career. History shows that while Blight copped a lot of criticism for axing so many established players, Adelaide went on to win their first AFL Premiership in
1997 over and repeated as premiers in
1998 by defeating . In May 1996, Tony McGuinness and long time Glenelg, South Australian and Crows teammate
Chris McDermott set up the
McGuinness McDermott Foundation which was launched in memory of five-year-old Nicholas Berry, and seven-year-old Nathan Maclean who died of cancer. The Foundation raises funds to improve oncology treatment for South Australian children. ==VFL / AFL career statistics summary==