Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has labelled champion Shane Crawford a 'pioneer' of the modern game on the eve of his 300th match.
Crawford is set to become just the 55th player in the 112-year history of the VFL/AFL to play 300 games on Saturday when he runs out against the Brisbane Lions at Aurora Stadium and Clarkson paid tribute to the way he and St Kilda veteran Robert Harvey have revolutionised football.
"Both those guys (Crawford and Harvey) in my view have probably been the pioneers for the modern game," Clarkson said at Melbourne Airport on Friday afternoon before he and his team caught a flight to Tasmania.
"They've taken training and professionalism to a completely new level and there's a lot of guys in the competition who can thank Shane Crawford and Robert Harvey for the way that the midfield play is handled nowadays."
"The intensity and the pace of the game has increased enormously over the last 10 years and for guys like he and Robert Harvey to have survived and evolved with the game in that period of time is quite outstanding."
The 300-game milestone is undoubtedly one of the most exceptional individual achievements a footballer can ever hope to accomplish and even Clarkson, who normally does his best to play down additional attention surrounding his team heading into a match, has found himself caught up in the significance of the 1999 Brownlow Medallist's feat.
"It's hard not to get wound up in it all really because it's been such a stellar career and the tributes have been flowing thick and fast and rightly so too," he said.
"He's been a very, very decorated player at our footy club and, you know, it'll draw some recognition this afternoon (and) tomorrow I'm sure. Especially from the 21 guys who are fortunate enough to run out in the brown and gold with him tomorrow."
Clarkson believes Crawford's 300th match will be made all the more special due to the fact that he has remained a one-club player.
"He's only the sixth player at our footy club to have done that. He's done it in an era too where the game has evolved and changed so much," Clarkson said.
"I heard him talk earlier in the week about how at the start of his career you'd go out on the ground and it was more than likely you had the same opponent for the whole day and it was just survival of the fittest really."
"It's still survival of the fittest in this game, but a different type of survival because it's (the game) just so much more demanding."
And despite some concerns over Crawford's tendonitis-afflicted knee, Clarkson confidently predicted that the 33-year-old would play his 300th match on Saturday.
"I'm a bit scared to talk about selections leading into the Launceston games," he quipped in reference to his public lambasting of a Tasmanian journalist for reporting that Jordan Lewis and Brad Sewell had left a training session early the day before the Hawks lost to the Bulldogs in Round 10 at Aurora Stadium.
"Unless something terrible happens in the next 24 hours, 'Crawf' will play his 300th tomorrow."
One Hawk who won't be taking the field is improved defender Michael Osborne as he continues to recover from a corked buttock sustained during Hawthorn's 11-point loss to Geelong a fortnight ago.
"It was really close to