THE WESTERN Bulldogs will celebrate the 10-year reunion of the 2016 premiership team at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night with the 22 in attendance, including four players currently playing elsewhere: Josh Dunkley, Jake Stringer, Caleb Daniel and Jack Macrae.

Only Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore are still playing at the Mission Whitten Oval, although both could be watching on with their premiership teammates as the current Bulldogs take on Sydney. Liberatore is in concussion protocols, while Bontempelli has been named in the Dogs' squad of 23 but is dealing with a knee injury.

Joel Hamling is the other current player from the 22 from that famous Grand Final win against the Swans in 2016. The key defender is now playing for Sydney – after seven years at Fremantle – but the return of Dane Rampe has squeezed the veteran out of Dean Cox's 23 for Thursday night's game.

Dunkley helped end a 62-year flag drought in 2016, but after 116 games across seven seasons at the Dogs, where he won the Sutton Medal in 2022, the midfielder requested a trade to the Lions after exploring a move to Essendon two years earlier.

The 29-year-old is now a three-time premiership player after playing an integral role in Brisbane's back-to-back premierships in 2024 and 2025 and has played in five Grand Finals across his first 200 games in the AFL.

Ahead of a special night for the Western Bulldogs, Dunkley said he still has deep affection for the club that picked him and developed him, making it clear there is no lingering bad blood after his move to the Lions.  

"I've got so many great relationships with guys that I've played with then and even with current players now, so to come back and spend time with those guys, and not just players, but coaches and staff members, it's something that you treasure and those moments you had together," Dunkley told AFL.com.au this week.

"I think it's worth saying, too, I don't have anything against the Doggies at all. I love that club. I'm very grateful for what they did for my personal career; they made me the person and player that I am today. It's a good opportunity to probably clear the air with that as well. I've got great relationships there still to this day and I thought it'd be really important to come down and connect with the guys that I haven't seen for quite some time.

"I made a decision based on my personal growth, for family reasons and personal life decisions. It wasn't anything to do with the club or how I was treated, was just one thing that I wanted to make sure that I continue to evolve. I feel like people think that I hate the Doggies, but I don't."

Dunkley was the youngest player on the ground for Luke Beveridge's side and became a premiership player at just 19 in his 17th game, after being selected at pick No.25 the previous November.

Now co-captain of Brisbane, alongside Harris Andrews and Hugh McClugagge, Dunkley remembers the team meeting when Beveridge dared them to dream of the impossible from outside the top four, despite losing the final game of the home and away season against Fremantle at Subiaco.

"Everyone wrote us off, and I just remember one moment from before the finals, where we played Freo in the last round over in Perth and I remember after that game, Bevo brought us all into the team meeting. He asked the whole group a question around whether we believed we can do it, as in do the unthinkable, in going all the way," Dunkley said.

"At that moment, I sat there and I was like 'I actually think if we play our best footy, we can do this'. And from that moment moving forward, it was like 'shit, we can do this'. Because it was like every week we just kept knocking teams off like West Coast – we had a really good win, then Hawthorn at the 'G we had a really good win, and then the momentum just kept building and building. 

"The Giants game was one of the hardest games I reckon I've ever played in. I just felt like we managed to get over the line in the end, because of the selflessness and stuff inside our team, and the want to play for each other; it got us to a Grand Final. The Grand Final was again, chaotic and hectic at times, but we stood up in the big moments."

There were plenty of big moments on October 1, 2016. None bigger than the third of Tom Boyd's goals when he sealed the game from inside the centre square after a defining chasedown tackle from Dale Morris on Lance Franklin.

Morris is now the backline coach at Brisbane, while Jordan Roughead coaches the defenders at Collingwood and three-time best and fairest winner Matthew Boyd is the midfield coach at the Magpies. 

Boyd played 23 more games for the red, white and blue before walking away from the game in 2019 after well-documented mental health battles. 

The now 30-year-old has become a leading mental health advocate and will always be a hero to the Western Bulldogs faithful.

"I think when you're in the midst of playing, you have a very limited perspective on what this means to other people. It's very selfish playing footy. The first time that I really got appreciation for what it means to be a Bulldogs supporter and to be there to watch your team finally win, was on the Sunday after the Grand Final at Whitten Oval. There was 45,000 people there and just the joy on people's faces," Boyd said.

"If you take that thread and you run it through the past 10 years, you realize over time just how much is involved in one the club as a whole, to the history that this club has had and the successes and failures as well. Ultimately, you know what it actually took to get us 22 guys to be able to win a flag on that day, and what it means to everyone else. It's been quite the ride."

Boyd had just arrived at the club when Doug Reynolds spoke at the 70-year reunion of the 1954 premiership – the club's only other VFL/AFL flag – and he left a lasting imprint on what it means to be a premiership player.

"He was 21 at the time, same age as me. He had a similar game to me. One of the questions that he was asked was do you still think about this game 70 years on? And he goes, 'Mate, I think about it every night before I go to sleep'," Boyd said. 

"Then I saw him as we headed to the bathrooms and he recognised me, we shook hands, and he goes, 'Mate, not many of us around anymore'."

Reynolds passed away in January this year at the age of 92 and is survived by only two 1954 premiership teammates.