(Sports)Aussie footballer 4th in league's 118-year history to play 400 games

Australian footballer Brent Harvey will on Saturday become just the fourth Australian Football League (AFL) player in the competition's 118-year history to reach the coveted 400-game milestone.

North Melbourne player Harvey, 37, will take to the field in his 400th match, having played every one with the Kangaroos, against the Brisbane Lions in Brisbane on Saturday night, a milestone made all the more remarkable by his diminutive stature.

At 167cm, Harvey is the shortest player in the AFL (along with Western Bulldogs rookie Caleb Daniel) and, in a highly physical sport where the average player stands 188cm, he has been able to make up for his lack of height with great speed, endurance and evasive skills.

Until Daniel began his AFL career this season, Harvey held the mantle as the league's smallest player for 12 years.

He joins current Essendon stalwart Dustin Fletcher and former players, Hawthorn's Michael Tuck and Richmond's Kevin Bartlett, as the only other men to achieve the feat, something that Harvey says is unlikely to happen again.

"I think 400 is a milestone that won't happen again. I honestly believe that I'll be the last player to do that," Harvey told AFL. com.au this week.

"(I don't mean) to sound big-headed or anything like that, but the game has changed so much and certainly if I had started 10 years ago I wouldn't be playing 400 games, there's no way known."

Harvey said the professionalization of the sport meant players would be unable to play more than 20 games per season, for nearly 20 seasons. Endi