{"id":168535,"date":"2025-09-25T17:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168535\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T17:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:11:10","slug":"bulldogs-closing-in-on-gold-coast-suns-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168535\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulldogs closing in on Gold Coast Suns talent"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Western Bulldogs<\/a> are firming as the frontrunners for Gold Coast<\/a>\u2019s Connor Budarick, with AFL Trade Radio\u2019s Riley Beveridge suggesting the 55-game Sun is edging towards Whitten Oval.<\/p>\n

Budarick, who has been used in multiple roles across the ground, is understood to prefer playing as a small defender, a position the Dogs have been looking to strengthen with veteran Taylor Duryea nearing the end of his career.<\/p>\n

Dogs the \u201cfrontrunners\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he sees himself as being a small defender,\u201d Beveridge told AFL Trade Radio. \u201cGold Coast have sort of sold him the vision of being this forward half player that can do a number of roles \u2026 and I\u2019m not sure whether or not that\u2019s his go.”<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Key scoring stat that will have Brisbane on red alert against the Cats<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Western Bulldogs though, have been hunting that sort of small defender for quite some time \u2026 I still think the Western Bulldogs are the frontrunners here, and I think that\u2019s been the view of a lot of the clubs in the chase for Connor Budarick right the way through.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Budarick has a two-year offer on the table to stay at the Suns \u2014 one that would carry him through to free agency, interest from North Melbourne<\/a>, Essendon<\/a> and Brisbane hasn\u2019t shifted the consensus that the Dogs are best placed to land him.<\/p>\n

The Gold Coast product has already overcome two ACL injuries early in his career, and a fresh start at the Kennel could provide the defensive stability the Bulldogs have been seeking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Western Bulldogs are firming as the frontrunners for Gold Coast\u2019s Connor Budarick, with AFL Trade Radio\u2019s Riley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-168535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}