JOSH Dunkley was on Wednesday night crowned the Charles Sutton Medallist as the Western Bulldogs\u2019 best and fairest for 2022.<\/p>\n
The midfielder polled 231 votes to beat fellow mid Tom Liberatore on 211, with key forward Aaron Naughton with 180 third, captain Marcus Bontempelli scoring 174 votes for fourth and the prolific Jack Macrae registering 170 and rounding out the top five.<\/p>\n
Coach Luke Beveridge spoke of Dunkley, who has requested a trade to the Brisbane Lions, at the club\u2019s awards night.<\/p>\n
He called for the Lions to \u201cpony up\u201d for the 25-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get the elephant in the room out of the way, I said to Josh many weeks ago that whatever happens, whatever your decision may be, you\u2019ve got to see it through with us,\u201d Beveridge said, regarding Dunkley\u2019s attendance on the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you\u2019ve invested too much here and we\u2019ve invested too much in you for this to end badly. He agreed that it was important for him. I don\u2019t know whether he made his decision at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a couple of conversations since and the most deflating one was when he called me to let me know what the decision was.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain we had that chat and I reminded him of his conviction and he promised me he\u2019d be here.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a real shame. I describe Josh as the glue in our team. He does all the hard team things unconditionally and we\u2019re going to need more of that from his former teammates next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a real diamond that we discovered and pinched from under Sydney\u2019s nose all those years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to come up and match market value when you\u2019ve got to spread the financial load across your whole group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s part of it, but Josh has also made a life decision on where he sees his future and where he\u2019s going to live and what it means to him at this point in time. And we respect that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe obvious thing is that the Lions are going to have to pony up. Sammy (Power) is going to go to work on that over the next week or two.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still with us until Brisbane gets there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunkley, who is a 2016 premiership player, played 116 games for the Dogs over seven seasons.<\/p>\n
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