Brent Macaffer spoke to the media ahead of his 50th senior game on Thursday morning.

Macaffer, 25, has been at Collingwood since December 2006 but injuries have slowed his progress in years since.

The premiership half forward has managed to reinvent himself as a high quality tagger this season but admits that when entering the season with only 30 games to his name, he wasn’t even dreaming of clocking up this week’s milestone.

“It’s something I didn’t see coming,” he smiled, “but I’m more than happy.”

Macaffer’s milestone coincides with the Magpies’ first meeting with Sharrod Wellingham since the 2010 premiership wingman was traded to West Coast last October.

“It’ll be good to play against him. He was much loved here at Collingwood so it will be good fun to see him out there.”

The tagger said that he didn’t know exactly which Eagle he would be looking to shut down on Friday night, highlighting players the calibre of Matthew Priddis, Andrew Gaff and Wellingham as just some of West Coast’s prime movers.

Although Collingwood’s top four aspirations are dust, Macaffer said that his team’s belief that it can make an impact in September hasn’t wavered.

“You’ve got to have that mindset where you are confident that against any side you can have a win,” he explained.

“We’re working on playing four quarters of footy and the first time we’ve done it was against Sydney so leading into the finals it’s pretty important.”