His cricket aspirations, already hindered due to economic difficulties caused by the Great Depression, were further interrupted when he was wheelchair-bound for months after a ruptured appendix in 1938. He was not allowed to enlist in the Australian Defence Force during World War II and worked at the Lithgow Small Arms Factory, in the town of Lithgow on the edge of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Only at the end of the war, aged 30, did he go to Sydney. At the time, he was a medium-fast left-arm bowler and approached the Petersham cricket club — as Toshack lived in the locality, it had the right to register him ahead of other clubs. Petersham did not select Toshack, so he joined Marrickville in Sydney Grade Cricket, starting in the third grade team in 1944–45. Within two matches, he rose to the first grade team. By this time, Petersham regretted its decision to spurn Toshack and lodged a complaint with the cricket authorities, claiming that he was obliged to represent Petersham and ineligible to play for Marrickville. Toshack later recalled that Petersham were "".