As AFL careers go, Josh Dunkley started his in almost perfect fashion.

An opening round debut in his maiden season. Seventeen senior games. A premiership medal.

It didn’t take long for the midfielder-forward to feel at home at Whitten Oval.

Over the past four seasons, he’s continued to grow, and plays his 50^th match for the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night.

“It feels like yesterday I played my first game, against Freo in Round 1 of 2016,” Dunkley said.

“It’s gone pretty quick. You listen to the guys who have retired like Bob Murphy and ‘Picko’, they say how fast it all went. Fifty games has gone pretty quick, in the blink of an eye, but I can’t wait for the future ahead.

“You always look at the milestone games – and 50 is one of the minor ones, but you’ve got to get to 50 before you get to the rest.

“It’s been an exciting week. The family are all coming along (Saturday night) and I can’t wait to get stuck in to it and hopefully we can get a win.”

After the highs of 2016, injury struck in 2017, and kept the rising star to just seven games.

He bounced back in 2018, missing just three AFL games for the year, and by season’s end had proven he could match it with the AFL’s best midfielders.

With each year, and experience, Dunkley has felt more and more like he belongs at the level.

“I feel like last year I found a really good routine, and I’ve tried to implement that again this year,” he said.

“I’m feeling really good, and I’m positive about the way things are going, so hopefully I can continue on with some good form, and some wins would be nice.”

Results haven’t gone the Dogs’ way over the past month, but that hasn’t deterred Dunkley or his teammates.

Saturday night presents an opportunity to bounce back against Richmond, one of the competition benchmarks over the past two years.

Dunkley is one of nine players sitting between 40 and 70 AFL games on the Bulldogs’ list, and can see what is building at the club.

“It’s quite good, because you can lean on each other,” he said.

“When we’re out on the field playing together you gel, and that relationship is really important I think. The boys in that range, there’s a few of them, but then there’s some up above that and a lot now below that… We’ve got to learn and develop together.”