JOSH Dunkley has won three premierships across his career at the Western Bulldogs and Brisbane, a best and fairest at each of those clubs, and now co-captains the Lions.
And despite all his successes, there are moments that still haunt him.
One of those came deep in the final quarter of the 2023 Grand Final, with the Lions leading Collingwood by two points. What transpired from the next centre bounce has gone down as one of the great plays in Magpie history – and Dunkley still blames himself.
With five minutes to go in the 2023 decider, a fatigued Dunkley was feeling the pinch and questioned whether he had enough left in the tank to stick with his mercurial Collingwood opponent Jordan De Goey.
It turns out he didn’t.
Dunkley lost his footing in the midfield at that centre stoppage, De Goey burst forward and ended up kicking a long goal that put the Pies in front for one final time.
“I slipped over in a centre bounce against Jordy De Goey … I’ll never forgive myself for it. I remember feeling at the time, like, cooked and i was like, ‘Jeez, should i swap with someone out of here because I’m on my last legs here?’,” Dunkley recalled.
“In hindsight, I had the role on Jordy that day at stoppages and in hindsight I probably should have given someone else the opportunity. Because ‘JL’ (Jarryd Lyons) had just come on as sub.
“So whether or not that decision from myself was to stop Jordy and stay with him, or give someone else a go. I recall that, and I recall probably if I had my time again, I would move out of the centre bounce and give ‘JL’ a go and tell him to play on Jordy and potentially he doesn’t kick that goal.”
This isn’t the first time Dunkley has revealed his Grand Final regret. He was among more than a dozen teammates who shared their pain in a team meeting as the Lions came to terms with missing out on a premiership in such heartbreaking fashion, and vowed to do things differently next time.
“I reckon there’d be 15 guys that spoke up in that meeting and admitted to what they’d done, and what they felt like they’d done to hurt us from winning that game. So, so many lessons were learned,” Dunkley said.
“We brought them out 12 months later, as you probably know, and talked about them. It wasn’t just that game itself. It was the lead-up. It was the week. It was everything that we did in that week that probably hindered us from winning in the end.”
Josh Dunkley tackles Jordan De Goey during the 2023 Grand Final. Picture: AFL Photos
The honesty was led by Fagan, who felt he hadn’t done enough from the coaches’ box to quell the influence of eventual Norm Smith medallist Bobby Hill, who booted four goals in a match-winning performance.
“I sort of underestimated the influence [Hill] was having on games during that final series, and I feel like in the Grand Final we should have got Brandon Starcevich to do a really hard, close-checking job on him. But I just backed in who he had and didn’t do that,” Fagan said.
“I look back on it and I think, well, maybe if I could just have stopped him from getting one goal, that might have been enough, you know? That’s sort of how you think about it in a game that was less than a goal margin at the end.
“A bit like when I was at the start of my coaching time at the Brisbane Lions, I was honest with them about my background and my history and I’ve always been pretty honest with the players when I think I might have stuffed something up.
“I put my hand up for that and I think that’s why we’ve got a good culture here because no one fears doing that.”
