Steer clear of anything to do with Essendon.
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Steer clear of anything to do with Essendon.
Tom Browne
@TomBrowne7
·
Oct 22
Further to my report on Monday morning, Essendon / Dunkley is a very real situation. I don’t think the Bulldogs will trade him, at this stage. Which makes it even more interesting. I’ll just let it play out,
but it has the hallmarks of one of the arm wrestles of the trade period.
I think Essendon must have been reading Woof. Bugger off.
Literally all of the smoke on this is coming from Tom Browne.
Arm wrestle? He’s contracted for another 2 years. Either Essendon offers up massive overs or we tell them to jog on.
If Dunks isn’t happy with that, too bad.
If there is any truth to this, I find myself speculating that Josh and the club may have different ideas around where he is most valuable. We seem to have gone out of our way since the start of 2019 to play him anywhere but midfield.
I agree in part, but think back to the start of 2019 and we certainly had conjured plans to play Josh forward. Was no surprise our form improved with his move back to midfield. Notably the fightback tribute game at Marvel comes to mind in which he was superb.
Edit : Just checking back Libba missing 2018 and playing 2019 fits the that theory I think you're on the right track there. Be interesting to see what happens with quarter length. Reading the tea leaves we will be around 18 minutes / qtr.
Why? The only thing that had been reported is an interest from Essendon, I really don't understand all the angst. There has been nothing even speculated from the Dogs or Josh's side. Clubs would make enquires about all sorts of players and mostly nothing would come of it.
In practice - Dunkley gets 8 minutes per game more time in the centre plus the time we manage our other starting mids, and that's only if Libba plays every game which I think we can't bank on. He's had two ACLs and I think we will be cautious in managing him during a regular season.
Dunkley by reputation is one of the most solid-citizens on our list. There are many, many players I'd let go before Dunkley.
We can ill afford to lose another outstanding Premiership player. Dunkley was poorly used as a back up ruck man to English which meant we were losing his fine midfield presence as a support to Bont and Libba. I am not sure why he would want to go to a Club like Essendon which still hasn't recovered from its drugs saga and continues to struggle both on and off the field.
I may be projecting, but I'm really hoping this trade conjecture puts a stop to our BS use of Dunks in the ruck.
If Essendon were really serious, they'd bring in Kyle Dunkley as a DFA and publicly state that Dunks would be their number 1 midfielder and would never spend another second in the ruck. That would set the cat amongst the pigeons.
Given Dunks is a contracted player, I would like the Club and Dunks to come out and knock this on the head if there is nothing in it. The fact that Darcy, who sits on our Board, didn't refute it on MMM other than to say that a trade would have to be compelling does make me wonder if something may be there.
Trading Dunkley - in my opinion - just doesn't really make sense. He's a big, hard at it mid who wins his own ball and would have to be in the top 5 mids in the game aerially, which is why we use him as a forward target so often. He's also a very good leader and best mates with Bont. I love what Josh brings to our club and I get that Libba's resurgence maybe impacted Dunks, but how many years has Lib even got left? Besides that, Dunkley is AA quality.
BUT.
For arguments sake if Essendon came with a hail mary offer and he wanted to go, what is his worth and how could we make it work for us?
The truth is that big inside mids aren't the hardest type of player in the world to find. Granted, not many are Dunks' quality on and off the field, but typically they're easier to find and we have a pretty good core of ball winning mids.
Draft picks would seem unlikely to cut it given anything we receive would be swallowed up by JUH, unless we could package picks to move higher up the order. Seems next to impossible. So, it comes down to either future picks and/or players. Besides Merrett I don't see a lot of appeal on Essendon's list, but for arguments sake if we got Merrett and something else, would that make us a better balanced side? I'd pick Dunkley all day every day over Merrett, but can a case be made that Merrett makes us a better side?
Food for thought. I hope we don't lose Dunkley, seeing a young premiership player about to hit his prime leave for Essendon would really 'top off' these last 4 years.
Western Bulldogs director Luke Darcy has watered down rumours that star midfielder Josh Dunkley could leave the club and join Essendon on a big-money deal.
With the Bombers set to lose Joe Daniher, Adam Saad and Orazio Fantasia this summer, the club is flush with salary cap space and has been rumoured with landing a big fish.
According to AFL reporter Tom Browne, the Bombers have expressed interest in the 23-year-old Bulldogs star who is under contract at the Whitten Oval through 2022.
However, when news of Essendon's reported interest in Dunkley was put to Darcy, the Bulldogs great immediately shot down the speculation.
Essendon is reportedly interested in adding Bulldogs star Josh Dunkley to its midfield group (AAP)
"I've got a creeping assumption he's going to stay exactly where he is," Darcy told Triple M's The Hot Breakfast.
"Everyone gazes everywhere this time of the year and you want to get every player to your club, whether you can do it or not is another thing.
"That would be a great surprise if he was anywhere other than the Bulldogs."
After being drafted 25th overall in the 2015 draft, Dunkley has been a prolific ball-winner for the Dogs, but had a down year in 2020, averaging just 18.2 disposals per game.
https://wwos.nine.com.au/afl/josh-du...b-6eb39a4bfbb6
LYON’S MESSAGE TO BULLDOGS OVER CONTRACTED MIDFIELDER DUNKLEY
Western Bulldogs cannot afford to let a player of Josh Dunkley’s calibre go, according to Garry Lyon.
It’s been widely reported that Essendon have expressed an interest in Dunkley who is contracted to the Bulldogs until the end of 2022.
The Dogs fell at the elimination final hurdle for the second straight season and Lyon says keeping Dunkley and adding more midfield depth is a must if they are to go deeper in the finals next year.
“Your midfield needs to be deep. You need six, seven, eight midfielders,” Lyon told SEN Breakfast.
"(Jackson) Macrae, (Marcus) Bontempelli and (Bailey) Smith might be their preferred starting line-up, but you’ve got (Tom) Liberatore, that is such an integral part of that (midfield), I would have Dunkley as an integral part of that.
“You’ve got to keep building it, you’ve got to keep building deep midfields – look at both of these teams in the Grand Final (Richmond and Geelong).
“From a footy point of view, I don’t think Josh Dunkley would be leaving the Western Bulldogs.”
Dunkley averaged 18 disposals and a tick under six tackles in an injury-interrupted 2020 campaign.
The 23-year-old is a premiership player in 2016 and has notched 78 games for the Dogs
So Lyon opining on Darcy commenting on Browne concocting patent clickbait.
We just need Kane Cornes or that sentient dim sim Hutchy to weigh in and the circle jerk will be complete.
Pleaze. If there's anything at all to this it's Essington keen to push the line it's being aggressive to distract from the fact the joint is crumbling to its knees, and who can blame them given they've got a Trade Week Premiership three-peat to defend.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl...970b08f24749d2
The Western Bulldogs have categorically ruled out entertaining a trade for on-baller Josh Dunkley.
The Dogs are aware of Essendon’s interest, as reported by Tom Browne, and foxfooty.com.au understands the proposed contract is lucrative financially and would lock Dunkley in for at least four seasons.
But even if he requests a trade, the Western Bulldogs would reject it immediately on the basis that the 23-year-old is not only a highly rated player, but a leadership group member and a respected person.
Throwing the farm with a lucrative offer for a player in contract, and with no apparent issues with their Club, is really poor form by any Club. Like where is this going to end with players and Clubs walking away from contracts due to a change of mind (to further it’s position), whilst other clubs and managers play their hardest to dissolve the agreements that are in place. Maybe this latest play from Essendon is retaliatory, I’d imagine there would be long memories in this regard, but either way the culture stinks.
Didn't we do likewise with Boyd at GWS and Lonergan at the Hand-Bags? (Not sure if Lonergan was under contract at the time though).
I look at it as a positive. The Bummers are devoid of culture that they are having to resort to looking over at Footscray to get some! That's how their generally arrogant fans will be looking at this, I can assure you.
Looking at it with common sense , it would take huge overs to get him and what have they got to offer us anyway ?
According to them they have the best midfield in the Competition why would they want Dunkley?
They need key forwards and key backs not another midfielder.
They have nothing to offer us player wise and why would a player leave a club playing finals and go to a basket case ?
Seriously Tom Browne has got his click bait that’s about it.
I would say NO to trading Dunkley. But as a hypothetical, let's say some other clubs prick up their ears and start thinking Dunks is 'gettable'.
What offer would you say yes to? (I know, presuming Dunkley wanted to go their etc etc)
let's hope the positive of the Don's interest in Dunckley is that Bevo never plays him in the ruck again.
Not according to them and as I said they have nothing to offer us anyway.
And don’t forget another two years with us under contract they have to pay that or at least some of it and with the salary cap dropping it’s pretty much a made up story.
Yeah Essendon might have asked but the idea of it happening is nonsense
So are you guys up for trading Dunkley?
In a vacuum yes. He is the highest value player we have that is surplus to our needs, although I guess you could argue Macrae is a slightly more valuable player and Dunkley could take his spot if he left.
However, Dunkley is perfect off field, well behaved, presents well, seems to be popular in the playing group (was he voted into the leadership group) and is tight with Bontempelli who comes out of contract next year and is the last person we want to annoy. Also the context matters, if Dunkley wants out then so be it, but if it's us pushing him out I think it doesn't go down well with the group, which could be a big risk.
I guess the flipside is even if we piss of the playing group it isn't like we are overperforming anyway so as long as we don't lose anyone important out of it we probably stand to benefit.