IN round one, Brad Johnson will become the sixth player to notch up 300 games for the Bulldogs. Here, we have a talk to the club captain about what reaching the coveted milestone means to him.

Congratulations Brad, on reaching your 300th game - I suppose you don't set out to play 300 games when you first start out?
Not at all, you just want to get a game I suppose and be consistent over your career and just try and hang in there as long as you can. I've been lucky enough to be around this great place for quite a while now and to reach that milestone is fantastic. But at the end of the day it's round one and we've got to win that game of footy. That's what my focus, and surely the team's focus, will be for that day. It is a cliché that you do look back at these things when your career is over, but that probably does ring true.

Even so, it must mean a great deal to you, to be able to remain here for 300 games, at the one club, with who knows how many more to come?
It does, and seeing some of my best friends do it as well in Granty (Chris Grant) and Westy (Scott West) and Smithy (Rohan Smith) over the last couple of years has been great. It means a lot to be able to stand alongside those guys and have that same commitment that they showed throughout their careers.

When you began playing, did you ever consider it could last this long?
It's the unknown. You love the game and you want to stay in it as long as you can. You have no set targets on the amount of games played, and you want to have an impact and be as consistent as you can for as long as your body will let you. I've been lucky to get this far, and hopefully I've got a few more years to stick around yet.

If it did all end straight after you played your 300th, would you be satisfied with what you've achieved in your career?
Definitely, but the premiership is always the one elusive thing that sits in the back of my mind, and probably in the front of my mind at the moment. Trying to achieve that goal, that's number one. So it would be great to achieve that over the next couple of years before it starts to wind down.

Your career has been very decorated on a personal level; how hard is it to accept all those accolades without the big one?
All that other stuff usually goes along with how the team is going for that season. If you've got a successful team and you play finals, those other bonuses come along if you've had a consistent season within that side. So, they're all things that when I look back, they'll be fantastic, but at the end of the day you want to be able to sit there and talk about premierships. We sit there and talk to Aker all the time about the four Grand Finals and three premierships that he's won and Rocket (coach Rodney Eade) has won them and Barnsey (ruck and stoppage coach John Barnes) has won them and (assistant coach) Peter Dean, and now Scotty Welsh. You talk to all these guys and you realise that's what it means. That's all you play for, to do as well as you can in the season and hopefully win the Grand Final. That's what footy is about, and I haven't been able to achieve it yet. I won one reserve-grade premiership for this club when 1994, which was great, but to win the ultimate. For me, that's what it's all about.

Do you ever get to a point where you think, this might not happen?
Not at all. The desire is always there for me, and we've certainly got the group to achieve it. There's certainly more drive now, knowing over the last couple of years that we are good enough to compete with the best and we can beat the best. We're certainly good enough.

Are you good enough this year?
Without a doubt, if things start to go our way. We've just got to improve on the second half of the season. We dropped away last year and didn't finish the season too well and that's been a bit of a motivation for us over summer; to start the season well and hold on to that form for the whole year.  Where we finish up, who knows? It really is the unknown at the moment, but if we can get things going early and hold our form and keep players on the park, we're certainly good enough to compete with the best.

Scott West reaches a milestone (equalling Ted Whitten’s tally of 321 games) in round one as well, it must be great to see him achieve another one?
It's a fantastic milestone for him and if he has a fantastic season like he normally does, he'll be the games record holder at the end of the season. He's certainly not looking towards that sort of stuff but, as a friend and as a teammate for such a long time, I think it would be great to see him reach that milestone.

It must be a great way for you and the club to start the season, with an important game like this?
It gives us some added motivation and we've got a couple of Adelaide boys in there as well so there's definitely a bit of motivation going into the first game. But, there's no more motivation than just being selected for that first game for the year. You have such a hard pre-season that making the side in round one is your goal, and then staying in the side for the rest of the year becomes your goal. For the guys to achieve that, that's motivation enough for them to go out and try and win the game for the club.

Stay tuned next Thursday for part two, where we talk to Johnson about the current Bulldogs' list, his life away from football, and his aspirations for the years after retirement.