AFL 2022: How the Brisbane Bears chased Jason Dunstall with a 10-year deal and came up empty

When the Brisbane Bears approached superstar Jason Dunstall with a 10-year, $2 million deal they must have thought they had their man. But they hadn’t done their research closely enough.

Jason Dunstall. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

For close to two hours a Brisbane Bears brains trust sat opposite the AFL’s best player in a small North Melbourne apartment promising him the world. Hopeful it would be enough.

It was 1993. Bears CEO Andrew Ireland, the man who 20 years later would engineer Lance Franklin’s arrival in Sydney, circled a double-digit number and posed the question: “How does 10 years sound?”

Next to Ireland sat chairman Alan Piper, Coorparoo’s top ticketholder and one of the men responsible, in part, for the storied career of the player they hoped to woo back home — four-time premiership Hawk Jason Dunstall.

Jason Dunstall gets his handpass away against the Brisbane Bears in 1996.

The Hawks superstar finished with 1254 by the time he retired in 1998.

“Alan was one of the state selectors when we first picked him (for Queensland),” recounted Ireland. “He was the best player Queensland had produced, why wouldn’t you try and lure him back if you could secure the best full-forward in the competition?”

The Bears had finished the 1993 AFL season with just four wins and were yet to contest a finals series in their seven years in the competition.

Scott McIvor and Roger Merrett were the headline acts to young up-and-comers like Michael Voss and Darryl White, but the Bears needed an established big fish to drag them out of the doldrums and Piper knew just the player.

The deal was for 10 years, $2 million and a job with Piper’s automotive company, AP Eagers.

“I suppose ’93 would have been a good time to approach him, because they’d (Hawthorn) won the flag in ’91 and were on the turn a bit,” says George Stone, the former Hawthorn assistant coach credited with turning Dunstall into one of the game’s best shots at goal.

But 1993 might actually have been too late, as the Bears soon came to realise.

John Platten, Dean Anderson, Jason Dunstall and Andy Collins after the Hawthorn great had kicked 17 goals against Richmond at Waverley Park.

Hindsight says had the meeting taken place in a certain bar in South Yarra, the Bears might have known Dunstall’s Melbourne roots were by that point simply too deep.

“He had the Saloon in South Yarra which was pretty successful. I drank there a fair bit so I should know,” laughed Stone.

“I think once he got into Melbourne life it suited him, as well as it offered him a career after football.”

Even before his retirement in 1998, Dunstall had already established himself as a prominent media identity in Melbourne.

For all that a decade-long, multimillion-dollar deal offered to a player of Dunstall’s standing, there was no matching the post-career opportunities he would have in Victoria.

“I think Jason’s view was that Melbourne and perhaps (a future in the) media was where he saw himself,” Ireland said.

Bears chief executive Andrew Ireland (middle) tried to lure home four-time premiership Hawk Jason Dunstall.

“There had always been this belief that it would be nice to get Jason back to Queensland, so when we structured the deal it was to try and lure him back.

“We had a good discussion, there might have been a few follow-up phone calls but Jason at that stage, I think, Melbourne and the media was where he saw himself.”

It was a gut blow to the Bears and particularly Piper, who longed to bring Coorparoo’s greatest product back home to build on the Bears’ move from Carrara to Brisbane.

It was, after all, through Piper and Ireland that Dunstall made his way onto Hawthorn’s radar in the first place.

“I remember there was this player who had kicked eight, maybe 10 against the ACT but we dropped him to bring Jason in to play Tassie in Hobart,” Ireland said.

“I think he kicked three that day, but (Hawthorn legend) Peter Hudson was commentating and it really set the train for him to head to Hawthorn.”

John Hook (left) was the Hawthorn recruiter who first approached Dunstall after a state game between Queensland and Tasmania.

Before becoming Hawthorn’s football boss John Hook was a recruiter, and at the behest of AFL Queensland GM Ken Murphy flew to Tasmania to watch Dunstall play.

“I spoke to Jason after the game and he was going to Fitzroy for a week and I said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t sign anything. We’re keen and we’ll keep in touch with you through the year’, which we did,” Hook said.

“Hand on my heart, I would never have thought he would turn out to be a Hall of Famer. I’d be bulls------g if I said that. He showed enough that he had a bit to offer, but he went beyond all expectations really.”

Hook was later Hawthorn football boss when the Bears tabled the offer to Dunstall, who by that point was a four-time premiership player and on the cusp of breaking the 1000 goal barrier.

Dunstall chose to remain loyal to his beloved Hawks.

“Our last flag before the Clarkson era was ’91. We had sustained a long time at that level through the 80s and early 90s. If he had left, no one would have blamed him and it wouldn’t have changed his status at Hawthorn at all in my opinion,” Hook said.

“(But) it was Hawthorn that gave him a chance. And in those days, there was probably a little bit more loyalty about it than in today’s era.

“Of course you try to get a bloke of his ability back to his home state. But most of Jason’s career he was playing in a side that was playing finals. What that’s worth, I don’t know if you can put a figure on it, but I think some players would put a premium on it.”

Conceding defeat and lamenting the missed opportunity to bring a favourite son home to Queensland, the Bears changed tact and tabled the same 10-year deal to an up-and-coming Tasmanian by the name of Alastair Lynch.

Alan Piper was a proud Coorparoo man who dreamed of bringing Jason Dunstall back home to Queensland.

Dunstall would go on to add a further 344 goals to his career tally, finishing with 1254 by the time he retired in 1998, while Lynch spearheaded a Brisbane breakout that culminated in a premiership three-peat from 2001-03.

As for Ireland, he learned a valuable lesson in negotiating long-term contract offers that would prove pivotal decades later, when the next great Hawthorn key forward this time agreed to a move north.

“I would have loved having Dunstall in my team,” Ireland said.

“It would have been a tremendous fillet for the club … you’re thinking, ‘S--- he’s a bloody good player, wouldn’t it be great to build around him’.

“But Lynchy was probably the player who, when we moved back to the Gabba, indicated a new start (for the club) and that Brisbane could actually be a destination for a good player.”