Collingwood ruckman Darren Jolly is set to play his 200th game of AFL football on Sunday against Essendon.
 
The 29-year-old, who is in his second season at Collingwood and 11th at the elite level, will become just the 11th player to reach 200 games after first being selected in a rookie draft.
 
Jolly hails from Lexton in western Victoria and was drafted from VFL club North Ballarat. He started his AFL career at Melbourne in 2001 and played 48 games in four seasons before moving to Sydney, where he was a member of the Swans’ 2005 premiership side.
 
He played 118 games in five seasons with the Swans before requesting a trade back to Melbourne at the end of 2009. Collingwood pounced, trading the 14th and 46th overall picks to Sydney to secure Jolly’s services.
 
Jolly went on to play all 26 games for the Magpies last year, including the premiership triumph.
 
This season Jolly extended his consecutive games played sequence to 142 (a streak that began in round eight, 2005) before he missed the round four clash with Richmond.
 
A knee injury forced him to miss seven matches mid-season, and a virus kept him out of the team that travelled to Gold Coast last week, but Jolly returns for his eighth appearance of 2011 this week.

Jolly spoke to CTV for 'In Black and White Tonight' earlier in the week.

"It’s something that I am proud of and hopefully it will be a good game. 

"I had the flu last week but I am fine and will be up and about this weekend."

Click here to view the latest edition of 'In Black and White Tonight'.