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Brisbane vice-captain Josh Dunkley says players around the AFL are exaggerating the effect of vigorous tackles to win free kicks.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, Dunkley was asked about Charlie Cameron's pending Tribunal case later that day and broadened the discussion.
The 27-year-old said players were trying to "manipulate" the rules, even if that caused their head to hit the ground first.
"At times you get tackled and your head hits the ground and you try and get a free kick because that's going to put you in a position to move forward," Dunkley said.
"Those little things should be looked at."
He hinted that it made things difficult for umpires, and by extension the governing bodies that ruled on tackles.
Cameron is facing a one-match suspension for rough conduct after a tackle on Jake Lever in the Lions' win last Thursday night.
The tackle was graded as careless conduct, medium impact and high contact.
"It's hard these days with free kicks being paid," Dunkley said.
"I feel like, it may not be in this instance, but other instances where players are trying to manipulate that and get free kicks, which is hard when you look at instances like this because sometimes they can assist the tackle where the action's there."
With the impact of concussion very much at the forefront of club thinking, Dunkley said Brisbane had emphasised its tackling technique.
He pointed to the work of new assistant coach Daniel Lloyd, but said it was a difficult craft to master.
"Sometimes it's hard," he said.
"You grab a lever and then the head's exposed and it hits the ground and there's so many instances of that this year that we're trying to stop.
"Sometimes it's a bit of luck of the draw with what happens out there in the heat of the moment."
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What does Josh Dunkley have in common with Alastair Lynch, Patrick Dangerfield, Paul Roos, Michael Rischitelli, Peter Bell, Martin Pike, Darren Jarman, Sam Mitchell and Lachie Neale?
If you know then buy yourself a big trophy, and before you set it up in prime position at home get a plaque and have it engraved “CHAMPION FOOTBALL NERD”.
Nerd? According to the dictionary it means “intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills.”
We’re not calling you introverted or questioning your social skills, or elevating your intellect, but it might be time to look at your obsession with football trivia. And how much time you spend following obscure football facts. Because this is top shelf.
Besides all being highly-credentialled AFL players of the modern era the aforementioned “Terrific Ten” each won a club best & fairest only to leave that club immediately.
Martin Pike, the last Fitzroy B&F winner in 1996, had an excuse. He had to find a new club after the Fitzroy merger with Brisbane, when he was initially shunned by the Lions only to later become a triple premiership hero. But for the others it was just ‘right time’.
Details of the movement of the ‘Terrific Ten’ were:-
1992 – Alastair Lynch – Fitzroy to Brisbane
1994 – Paul Roos – Fitzroy to Sydney
1995 – Darren Jarman – Hawthorn to Adelaide
1996 – Martin Pike – Fitzroy to North Melbourne
2000 – Peter Bell – North Melbourne to Fremantle
2010 – Michael Rischitelli – Brisbane to Gold Coast
2015 – Patrick Dangerfield – Adelaide to Geelong
2016 – Sam Mitchell – Hawthorn to West Coast
2018 – Lachie Neale – Fremantle to Brisbane
2022 – Josh Dunkley – W/Bulldogs to Brisbane
It’s a weird statistic which will bring mixed emotions to Lions fans.
With a “plus two” net result, having picked up Lynch, Neale and Dunkley while losing Rischitelli, Brisbane sit on top of this all-nerds trivia ladder.
But, sadly for Fitzroy supporters, their “minus three” net score, which puts them at the bottom of the same ladder, is a sad reminder of times past, when Lynch and Roos were among a large group of senior players to move on.
Like so many weird and wonderful statistics, it’s means little now. Except that on Saturday night Dunkley will wear Brisbane colors in his 150th AFL game against Richmond at the Gabba.
But if you thank that statistic is a ‘nerd’ special then consider the trade via which Dunkley made his way to Brisbane after winning the 2022 Western Bulldogs B&F. And, harder still, evaluate the worth of it all.
Officially, the Lions gave up pick #21 in the 2022 National Draft plus first, second and fourth round picks in 2023, and received Dunkley and the Dogs’ third and fourth round picks in 2023.
It was a deal that went right down to the final hour of the trade period, and drew criticism at the time from Dunkley’s manager Liam Pickering, who suggested it could have been done much earlier and questioned “haggling over a future fourth-round pick that is probably never going to get used anyway”.
The irony of the whole deal is that, while it was used, the player the Dogs picked with the fourth-round pick last year, Aiden O’Driscoll, retired this week without playing a game due to concussion.
So who won the trade? Who knows! It’s too complicated for all but those involved. Ask Lions List Manager Dom Ambrogio, but give him plenty of time.
And don’t forget to consider the side benefits for Queensland sport – Josh’s younger brother Kyle, who played five AFL games with Melbourne in 2019-20, has had two years with the Lions’ VFL side. And playing with the Queensland Firebirds in the Super Netball is Dunkley’s sister Lara and girlfriend Tippah Dwan, who is originally from Toowoomba.
Dunkley, the youngest member of the 2016 Bulldogs premiership side at 19 in just his 17th game, got to Brisbane two years after he’d originally sought a trade to Essendon only for the Dogs to block it.
It was a deal that took coach Chris Fagan back to a dark moment in his first season at the Lions in 2017. It was his fifth game against the Dogs at Marvel Stadium when his side led by 32 points at halftime and lost by 32 points.
It was his first look as a coach at a 20-year Dog in his 19th game who played only 71% game time but had a nicely rounded statistical haul of 15 possessions (four contested), three goals, four tackles, five inside 50s, two clearances, two contested marks inside 50, three running bounces and a goal assist. Dunkley.
Since that forgettable day in what was the 300th game of Dogs captain Robert Murphy Fagan has been a big Dunkley fan. So much so that to help land him Fagan took a trip to Yarram.
Yarram? It’s a small town in south-east Gippsland, with an official 2024 population of 4763, where Andrew Dunkley, father of the new 150-gamer, went to live after a 216-game career with the Sydney Swans which had its own version of top-shelf football trivia.
Dunkley Snr played in the AFL Centenary Grand Final of 1996 under bizarre circumstances. On the Wednesday before the ‘big one’ he was reported on video evidence for striking Essendon captain James Hird in the preliminary final – a rare occurrence at the time.
On the Thursday night the Swans obtained a Supreme Court injunction to stop the case being heard until after the Grand Final, with the judge ruling that requiring Dunkley to face the tribunal one day after learning of the charge and two days before the Grand Final would deny him natural justice.
But it was a story with two sad endings – the Swans lost to North Melbourne and, when the case was heard the following week, Dunkley was suspended for three weeks
The fine career of Dunkley Snr made Dunkley Jnr eligible to go to Sydney as a father/son pick, but in the 2015 National Draft the Swans chose not to match a bid on the Gippsland Power midfielder from the Dogs at pick #25. So he became a Dog.
It was another chapter in a 2015 National Draft saga which involved an unimaginable number of Brisbane connections and offers more top-shelf content for the nerds.
Drafted in 2015 were #2 Josh Schache, #8 Callum AhChee, #14 Eric Hipwood, #17 Tom Doedee, #24 Ben Keays, #25 Dunkley, #35 Marcus Adams, #39 Rhys Mathieson, #47 Sam Skinner, plus rookies Corey Wagner, a Lions Academy product passed over when North Melbourne bid on him, Reuben William and Daniel Lloyd.
All have either played for Brisbane or could have played for Brisbane. Or in Doedee’s case, waiting to play for Brisbane. And Lloyd? Read on.
Want all the details? Ask Ambrogio (again), but let him first give you a little pearl of wisdom about Lloyd, who played 101 games with GWS, including the 2019 grand final, is now a development coach at the Lions, and has been in the news this week as a possible mid-season draft pick-up for the injury-ravaged Lions.
Originally from the NSW Central Coast, Lloyd was a NSW Scholarship holder in 2006 - with the Dogs.
Dunkley, fourth in the 2023 Merrett/Murray Medal after three top five B&F finishes with the Dogs, will be the 11th player from the 2015 Draft to play 150 games, and the first one to have changed clubs.
And if you can name them you’re a life member of the Statistical Nerds Society.
Heading the list is the player taken 84th overall with pick #14 in the rookie draft – Sydney’s Tom Papley (173 games).
Then follows Melbourne pick #4 Clayton Oliver (171), Richmond #15 Daniel Rioli (169), Carlton #1 Jacob Weitering (166), Hipwood (162), GWS #16 Harry Himmelberg (161), Essendon #5 Darcy Parish (157), Hawthorn #44 Blake Hardwick (156), Sydney #3 Callum Mills (155) and Port Adelaide rookie #45 Dan Houston (155).
