Ahead of Scott Pendlebury’s 300th AFL game, premiership teammate Steele Sidebottom said the Collingwood captain’s professionalism has set him apart from his contemporaries.

Pendlebury will notch the milestone in the Magpies’ qualifying final against Geelong at the MCG on Friday night, adding another honour to a decorated career.

“He’s a gun because of the other stuff he does when none of the cameras are around or anything like that,” Sidebottom told AAP.

“He’s the ultimate professional. He puts a lot of time and effort into his body and he’s obviously talented as well.

“He’s the ultimate professional and it’s an awesome achievement for him and hopefully (he’s) still got plenty more to go.”

The Collingwood skipper has played 21 or more games in 12 of his 14 seasons, an effort testament to his quality and durability.

Pendlebury said he had been “lucky” in the sense he had enjoyed a relatively injury-free run across his career.

“I’ve been extremely lucky so far across my career to get that many seasons in and no sort of injuries that threatened my career,” he said.

“So yeah looking forward to playing game 300, but more importantly the final.”

Pendlebury will become just the third Magpie to hit the 300 game mark, with only Tony Shaw (313 games) and Gordon Coventry (306 games) wearing the black and white more often, something he said was yet to sink in.

“It probably hasn’t really hit home,” he said.

“(In) 125-126 years, to be the third guy (to reach 300 games at Collingwood), it’s obviously pretty special and hopefully in the next few years we can get a few more Collingwood guys past that 300 mark.”