North Melbourne skipper Brent Harvey wants to play on for a couple more years because he believes the club is on the verge of a strong period of success.
Speaking at Arden St on Monday morning, six days before he runs out for his 300th AFL game for the Kangaroos, Harvey is unsure when he will call time on his career having recently committed to a 16th season with a new one-year deal for 2011.
Apart from the fact that he has lost none of his pace and remains one of the premier players in the competition, the fact that Harvey believes the future is so promising for the club has him excited about the next couple of years.
"I'm absolutely loving my footy at the minute, I reckon this is the most excited I've ever been," Harvey said after joking that he'd like to play for another 10 years.
"You look around and you've got the new facility, a fantastic new coach (Brad Scott), a great coaching staff and a bunch of youngsters who want to learn."
"So I just reckon it's exciting and I really believe (in the) next couple of years we can achieve something pretty special so I've just got to last that time."
"I'm definitely playing next year, I've just got the contract ... and then after that I'll just sit down and make sure the body is fine, Brad still hopefully thinks I'm going ok and we'll take it from there."
Speaking for more than 15 minutes on Monday, Harvey repeatedly referred to the fact that finals and premierships are the reasons he plays footy and he hasn't yet given up hope on qualifying for September this year.
"We're still in the finals race and that probably means more to me than my milestone (this week)," he added ahead of Sunday's Subiaco clash with bottom side West Coast.
"There's still a small chance that we can make finals ... (so) as long as there's a small chance we'll be up and about, we'll be ready to go."
"We do a huge pre-season, all the coaches' planning to win our games, (is) to play finals footy and I just think we're not that far off."
"For our young guys (Ryan) Bastinac's had a sensational season, (Ben) Cunnington, Leigh Adams has stepped up and taken the next step."
"For those guys to play in a finals atmosphere at a game it's going to be huge for us."
If the club does finish ninth in 2010, having already claimed six more points this season than it did last year, Harvey will look back on it as a failure.
"Probably not (a pass), I'd like to play finals," Harvey said.
"You can ask the coaching staff behind you as well, we play to play finals."
"We're definitely not in a rebuilding phase, we're not in a youngster phase, the guys that run out every single week are very, very capable of winning games."
"So it's definitely not a pass mark (if we miss the finals)."