Ash Brown

Well, we have a long-standing tradition of putting 300-game players on the cover.

It's been a tradition of ours probably for the last 25 years.

It was a Tony Peake rule from back in the day when he was sort of the head media guru at the AFL, and the AFL record team was instructed accordingly.

We've actually got five covers this week, believe it or not, but obviously the national cover we've made, Mark Blitzaf, so that'll be the cover for several games.

And how did you choose that?

Well, on the basis that...

One of the 300 game players spoke to the record and one chose not to.

And I think Lockie Neal will give him some credit.

It's been a pretty difficult time for him.

So I have no issues whatsoever if he is limiting the media around his milestone game.

So I have no problem with that whatsoever.

But we end up, a guy called Ben Guthrie, who is a brother of Cam and Zach at Geelong, a former really good AFL media journalist, Ben, and a family friend.

The Blitzavs and the Guthries are family friends and I think Sunbury football royalty, as I understand it.

So we enlisted Benny to have a sort of a Q&A with his great mate, Mark Blitzhouse, who I've not noticed a lot of media over the years.

He's been one of the more low profile 300 game players.

How many times would you have done media with Mark Blitzhouse?

If he can be up there for underrated, I think he would be there.

He just goes about his business with minimum fuss and you walk away from a game saying sometimes you didn't really notice him.

Then you look at the stats and think, actually, no, he had a profound effect on the game and

that can swing him around.