Josh Dunkley will be 710^th player to post 200 AFL games on Sunday in a milestone which, as significant as it is, pales into insignificance to one which crept under the radar last October.

When Dunkley claimed the 2026 Merrett/Murray Medal he joined a very, very exclusive AFL club as just the third player all-time to have won a premiership and a best & fairest at two clubs.

It’s a distinction he shares with two of the game’s most decorated players, Ian Stewart and Barry Davis.

Stewart, an Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend, was a triple Brownlow Medallist and Team of the Century choice at St Kilda and Richmond. He won the B&F at St Kilda in 1964-66 and was a member of the club’s only premiership side in 1966, and at Richmond won the B&F in 1971 before flags in 1973-74.

Davis, a Hall of Famer and a Team of the Century member at Essendon and North Melbourne, won the Essendon B&F in 1968-69-71 after premierships in 1962-65, before winning the B&F at North in 1973-75 when he was also premiership captain.

After 53 years as the only pair in this exclusive club they were joined last year by Dunkley.

The 32^nd player to win a premiership at two clubs, Dunkley ‘qualified’ when he won the Merrett/Murray Medal / premiership double last year after the Lions’ flag in 2024, a premiership with the Western Bulldogs in 2016 and a B&F at the Dogs in 2022.

At 28 the new Lions co-captain was six months older than Stewart when he posted his ‘double-double’ in 1973, and two years younger than Stewart in 1971.

Yet if he takes a moment to reflect on his football journey ahead of his 200^th against Melbourne at the MCG he will ponder not one but two huge ‘what if?’ moments which could have sent his career down an entirely different path.

What if in 2015 the Sydney Swans had not shunned him in the national draft?

And what if a trade request to Essendon in 2020 did not fall through at the last minute?

Born in Sydney and raised at Yarram in Gippsland, he was eligible to go to Sydney as a father/son choice after father Andrew played 217 games with the club.

But, when the Dogs bid on him at pick #25 in the draft the Swans chose not to match.

It was a fateful moment as 12 months later, in his 17^th game at 19 Dunkley was the youngest member of a Dogs side that beat Sydney in the 2016 grand to end a 52-year premiership drought.

Four years and 61 games on, and still with two years of a contract to run at the Dogs, Dunkley wanted out. He chose Essendon on the back of promised midfield time.

The Bombers offered pick #7 in the  2020 Draft and a future second-round pick for him – an offer which the industry at the time said was ‘unders’. It was immediately rejected by the Dogs.

It was another fateful moment as 12 months on he played in the 2021 grand final loss to Melbourne in Perth. And then, a further 12 months on, as a 25-year-old 116-gamer, his future was big news again.

He was hotly pursued by Port Adelaide, partly because his partner (now fiancé) Tippah Dwan was playing with the Adelaide Thunderbirds in the Super Netball League, but, with strong personal ties to Noosa, he chose Brisbane.

He had a long-term plan. Because in December 2023 Tippah, originally from Toowoomba, moved to the Queensland Firebirds, where Josh’s sister Lara was a long-time star.

The Dogs requested two first-round picks from the Lions, and when there was a standoff heading into the last day of the trade period, the Dogs threatened to force Dunkley into the pre-season draft. The media suggested he’d be ‘left at the altar’ again.

But 30 minutes from the deadline the Lions honoured a private commitment to Dunkley to get the deal done. They gave up pick #21 in the 2022 draft, plus a future first, a future second and a future fourth for Dunkley and two future third-round picks.

Three years on it is value-plus. Dunkley has finished 4^th-3^rd-1^st in the B&F as Brisbane played in three grand finals for two flags. And now he’s a co-captain.

That Dunkley is all class on and off the field has never been questioned. But if you want one private example it is the lovely letter he sent to then Port coach Ken Hinkley after he’d knocked the Power back thanking him for his interest.

A 2014 graduate of Gippsland Grammar School and the 2015 captain of a Gippsland Power side that included Tom Papley, Harry and Ben McKay, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti and ex-Lion Sam Skinner, Dunkley will be the sixth player from the Class of 2015 to 200 games.

He follows pick #4 Clayton Oliver (210), #1 Jacob Weitering (208), #15 Daniel Rioli (208), #16 Harry Himmelberg (206) and #44 Blake Hardwick (203).

He slips in ahead of pick #14 and current teammate Eric Hipwood, who has been stranded by injury on 199 games since the last game of the 2025 home-and-away season.

Andrew and Josh Dunkley will be the 13^th father/son pairing in the AFL 200 Club.