Ideally for Glenn Archer, he would have shared a bottle of red with Wayne Schimmelbusch at the end of the AFL season, with equal rights to the Kangaroos' games record of 306 games.

But given Archer's career has definitely two and possibly a few more games to run, the Kangaroos favourite will on Saturday break his club's games record, when he surpasses the total set by his former coach, against Carlton at Telstra Dome.

Overtaking his former mentor does not sit well with the ever-humble Archer, who credits Schimmelbusch for bringing out confidence in the man who went on to become Shinboner of the Century.

"It doesn't sit real comfortable with me," Archer said.

"Schimma's a legend of our club and of the AFL and when I walked into the club 17 years ago and saw Wayne Schimmelbusch's name up on the wall with 306 games, I never thought I'd come anywhere near that.

"It's certainly a bit surreal for me."

To bring himself back to earth, Archer dropped into Schimmelbusch's house last week and over a bottle of wine the pair recalled their early days together, when the then-coach saw something special.

By his own admission, Archer's first handful of AFL games were so bad he wanted to stay in the reserves.

But towards the end of the 1992 season, the coach punted on playing the teenager on some big names. The ploy worked.

"Luckily for me, Schimma kept persisting in me and by the end of the year he gave me some big jobs on Gavin Brown and Greg Anderson and Richard Osborne," Archer said.

"I finally started to get a bit of confidence in myself and I went in to the next year thinking maybe I can play this game."

Archer played the game so well he became one of the greats, who is still playing well so close to his finish.

"(Breaking the record) doesn't sit comfortably with me now, playing well," he said.

"If I'd limped over it would not have been real good for me, so I do take a little bit of pride out of that."

Schimmelbusch, whose career was ended when he suffered a knee injury in 1987, said he would have been pleased for either one of Archer or his mate Anthony Stevens to have broken his record, because of the way they played and the respect they earned.

"I'd rather it be broken by somebody that I know and respect and one of Glenn's attributes is that he's universally respected right across the board," he said.

"Not just from his teammates and his own supporters, but all his peers from opposition sides respect him, as well as their supporters.

"If you can finish your career after 300 games being universally respected ... every young player should aim for that."

The Kangaroos must snap a three-game losing run to keep their double chance hopes alive, and Archer said it was vital the side improved from their recent losses to West Coast and Geelong.

"If we're to lose the next two we could drop out of the eight, so they're very important for us," he said.

"If we win the next two we could go into the top four, so they're massive for us."

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