Josh Dunkley is a coodabeen Swan who originally wanted to be a Tiger but instead became a Dog. Then two years ago he wanted to become a Bomber but stayed a Dog and now he’s a Lion, set to finish his AFL career at a club he was desperate to avoid when he joined the AFL seven years ago.

The final stop in a remarkable football journey fell into place for the 25-year-old midfielder 14 minutes before the end of the AFL trade period yesterday (Wednesday) after he’d spent a nerve-wracking afternoon and evening following proceedings on the family farm at Yarram in Gippsland.

Dunkley could have been excused for having some horrible flashbacks to the corresponding time in 2020, when, still contracted to the Western Bulldogs for two years, he requested a trade to Essendon. All was on track until the Bombers, despite having committed to him, could not to get a trade done.

As the clock ticked down towards the 7.30pm trade deadline (Melbourne time) yesterday Dunkley, this time out of contract, watched anxiously with the rest of the football world.

His direct line of communication was via his manager Liam Pickering, who had joined the Brisbane brainstrust in the designed Lions room at Marvel Stadium for the last hour of the trade period.

Shortly after Pickering walked into the room the AFL trade radio team of Damien Barrett, Stephen Silvagni and Matthew Lloyd, watching on a hidden silent camera which Pickering was not aware of, saw him shake hands with Brisbane officials. They assumed the deal was done and prematurely trumpeted as much.

There was still work to do. With the clubs allocated rooms alphabetically, Brisbane and the Western Bulldogs were at opposition ends of the stadium. But Lions list boss Dom Ambrogio was in constant communication by phone with to his Dogs counterpart Sam Power, younger brother of Lions triple premiership player Luke Power.

It was gripping viewing, even without knowing exactly what was going on, and as the clock showed 7.16pm Ambrogio and Power struck a deal. Ambrogio increased the Brisbane trade offer slightly, throwing in a future fourth round pick to get his man.

It was a massive end to an A-plus trade period for the club, who traded in Dunkley and Hawthorn veteran Jack Gunston and secured enough draft points to guarantee father/son pair Will Ashcroft and Jaspa Fletcher in the  draft, while losing only free agent Dan McStay (Collingwood) and Tom Berry (Gold Coast).

Dunkley, winner of the Bulldogs’ best & fairest this year and a high-quality inside/outside midfielder with strong leadership characteristics, is a massive coup. Yet if you’d told him as an 18-year-old draft hopeful in 2015 he was playing for the Lions he would have been devastated.

It all goes back to the early days for Dunkley, whose father Andrew played 217 games for the Sydney Swans including the 1996 AFL grand final after the club secured a Supreme Court injunction to delay the hearing of a striking charge laid on video evidence on the Wednesday of grand final week.

The judge ruled that expecting Dunkley to face the tribunal one day after being reported and two days before the grand final would deny natural justice, given the club’s lack of time to prepare a defence, so he was cleared to play. When the case was later heard he was suspended for three matches.

Dunkley Jnr was born in Sydney 103 days after the 1996 grand final but at age three, after his father had retired from football, moved with his family to a farm at Yarram, 220km east of Melbourne.

There was Andrew, his wife Lisa, Josh, older sister Lara, who now plays with the Queensland Firebirds in the Suncorp Super Netball competition, and younger brother Kyle, who played five AFL games with Melbourne in 2019 after being drafted in the Mid-Season Rookie Draft.

They are a tight-knit family, highly motivated and competitive, as was evidenced by a story about the Dunkley brothers posted on the AFL Players’ Association website in June 2019.

In it, Kyle Dunkley recounted driving home after a heavy loss on a day in which his father, eager to pass on the principles of hard work and disciplined to his children, had been coaching. His sister and brother had also played while his mother was on half-time oranges duty.

The coach, who would regularly drive anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours to attend his children’s sport, suggested they complete a beep test (a multistage fitness test designed to measure aerobic endurance) on their arrival home to make up for a disappointing on-field performance.

“We’d just copped a serve in the car on the way home so we thought it was in our best interests to do (the beep test),” Kyle told AFLPlayers.com.au, explaining how the family had set up a beep test course on the property, with the running track spanning their driveway.

It was all part of a one-in-all-in mentality, the story said. Often, Lara would play in the ruck for Josh’s team, with Kyle, three years younger than Josh, playing up an age-group.

From Wednesday night social badminton competitions to ballet, the Dunkley’s tried their hand at everything.

“It was Dad’s idea for us to join the local ballet group,” Josh said. “Mum and Lara were doing it so it made sense for us to do it too but Dad got ‘Ky’ and I over the line by saying (Essendon champion) James Hird had done ballet for his flexibility.

“There wasn’t much around so it was always the five of us hanging out and I think that’s why we’re so close,” Kyle said.

Josh graduated in 2014 from Gippsland Grammar, which also counts among its alumni former Federal politician and Essendon Football Club president Lindsay Tanner, six-time Olympic rower and ‘Oarsome Foursome’ member James Tomkins and comedian Will Anderson.

Having played his first football in the Auskick program at Yarram, he was a product of the Gippsland Power in the now NAB League and was a two-year member of the AFL Academy – in 2013-14 as a bottom-age player and 2014-15 as a top-ager. He was also an occasional member of the Swans Academy.

Among his AFL Academy teammates were subsequent Brisbane draftees Rhys Mathieson, Josh Schache and Sam Skinner, plus Carlton star Jacob Weitering, Essendon’s Darcy Parish, Sydney’s Callum Mills, GWS draftee Jacob Hopper, who was traded to Richmond yesterday, and, in his first year only, Brisbane draftee Ben Keays and current Brisbane player Callum AhChee.

In 2015 Dunkley captained a Power side that included five other draftees – brothers Harry McKay (Carlton) and Ben McKay (North), Tom Papley (Sydney), Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti (Essendon) and Skinner. He also played six games with the Richmond VFL side, where he quickly established a strong group of friends.

As the 2015 draft approached Dunkley faced a real dilemma. He wanted to stay in Victoria to be close to family and was privately hoping to go to Richmond, but he was attracting interest from several interstate clubs.

So, deciding that if he had to go interstate he would prefer Sydney, he nominated as a would-be Swans father/son selection. At least he was familiar with the club where his father had played, and at least he wouldn’t have to go to Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth.

In pre-draft ‘guestimations’ Dunkley was tipped to go anywhere from 10-30 in the draft, and was linked strongly to Richmond, Adelaide, Carlton, Western Bulldogs, West Coast, Gold Coast and Sydney.

But the draft on 24 November at the Adelaide Convention Centre was full of surprises. His good mate Weitering went to Carlton at #1, Brisbane took Schache at #2 and Sydney matched a Melbourne bid on Mills at #3. Brisbane drafted Eric Hipwood at #14 before Richmond used their first pick on Daniel Rioli at #15.

Dunkley knew then he wasn’t going to Richmond, whose next pick was #50. And with four of the next nine picks belonging to interstate clubs he would have been extra worried had he not taken the safety net of the Swans father/son option.

At #16 GWS took Harry Himmelberg before Tom Doedee went to Adelaide at #17 and Gold Coast took Brayden Fiorini at #20. At #24 Brisbane took Keays before the Bulldogs nominated Dunkley at #25.

So it would be Sydney right? Wrong! The Swans, having used picks #33-36-37-43 to secure Mills, chose not to match the Bulldogs’ bid for Dunkley, and later took Tyrone Leonardis from the Northern Knights at #51 and Jordan Dawson from SANFL club Sturt at #56.

Leonardis never played an AFL game and after six years and 64 games at Sydney Dawson requested and was granted a trade home to Adelaide, where he was runner-up in the B&F this year and finished third in the Swans B&F in 2021.

Dunkley, the first potential father/son selection overlooked under the AFL’s new draft bidding rules, wasn’t happy to be shunned by his father’s club but at least he had gone to a Melbourne club.

He shared his AFL debut with the Dogs in Round 1 2016 with 22-year-old West Australian Marcus Adams, with whom he will be reunited at the Lions next year, and 10 months later, having shared a flat in Melbourne with his sister through his first AFL season, the draft was all forgotten.

At 19 in just his 17^th AFL game he was the youngest member of a Dogs side that beat the Swans in the 2016 AFL Grand Final.

After a shoulder injury restricted him to seven games in 2017 Dunkley played 54 games in 2018-19 and the Covid-shortened season of 2020. He was fifth in the B&F in 2018 and second in 2019, when he was a member of the 40-man All-Australian squad.

After his ill-fated efforts to get to Essendon at the end of 2020, reportedly in search of more midfield time, he played 15 games with the Dogs in 2021 and 23 games in 2022, when he averaged 25.4 possessions, kicked 18 goals and polled a club-high 14 votes in the Brownlow Medal to finish equal 13^th overall, equal with Brisbane’s Hugh McCluggage.

Dunkley polled 231 votes in the Bulldogs B&F to win from Tom Liberatore (211), Aaron Naughton (180), captain Marcus Bontempelli (174) and Jack Macrae (170).

He was just the fourth player from the 2015 AFL Draft to win a club B&F behind Weitering, Melbourne’s Clayton Oliver, who was pick #4, and Fremantle draftee turned discard Sam Collins, who was the 2020 B&F winner at the Gold Coast.

Dunkley, whose Toowoomba-born girlfriend Tippah Dwan plays with the Adelaide Thunderbirds in the Netball League after going to school at Somerville House in Brisbane, now ranks 12^th in games among the 2015 Draft Class.

He is fourth in possessions behind only Oliver, Essendon’s Darcy Parish, who was pick #5, and Mills. He is third behind Oliver and Mills in Brownlow Medal votes, having polled 15 votes to finish equal 19^th in 2019.

After playing his first two years at the Dogs in jumper #20 Dunkley has spent the last five years in #5, which is now vacant at the Lions following Mitch Robinson’s retirement. Also free is Tom Berry’s #13 and Dan McStay’s #25 and #8-41-42 not worn at AFL level by Ely Smith, Devidas Uosis and Mitch Cox.