Although Lachie Neale won his second Marcus Ashcroft Medal in Saturday night's big win over Gold Coast, Josh Dunkley again showed why his off-season acquisition has been critical to the Lions' 8-2 start to the season.

Not only did the former Western Bulldog rack up 29 disposals, including seven clearances and a match-high 11 score involvements, he kept Suns bull Matt Rowell relatively quiet in a head-to-head midfield battle.

Rowell, among the AFL's top five in clearances before the round, finished with 18 touches and just three takeaways.

Executing this role assigned to him by coach Chris Fagan went a long way to helping Brisbane record the 16.11 (107) to 9.10 (64) victory at The Gabba.

It wasn’t the first time this season that Dunkley has done a shutdown job on an opposition’s star player.

Two weeks ago against Carlton, the first-year Lion put the clamps on Brownlow medallist Patrick Cripps by keeping him to 17 disposals.

Making Dunkley’s performance even more impressive was that he himself amassed 33 disposals, 14 contested possessions, 13 tackles, six clearances and 555 metres gained.

And now with Rowell's scalp too, he is proving to be the two-way weapon the Lions have craved.