This weekend Jack Ziebell is set to join an exclusive club of North Melbourne footballers. Should he run out against St Kilda he'll become just the 12th player to register 250 senior appearances in North Melbourne history.

Ziebell will also have the honour of bringing up the milestone as captain of the club. Holding the mantle since 2017, he'll become just the fourth Kangaroos skipper to bring up the magical 250 games behind club greats Wayne Schimmelbusch, Anthony Stevens and Adam Simpson.

Ziebell has left an indelible mark on the sides of this newest North generation, and he continues to help rebuild the club's on-field performances from the ground up by mentoring the next group of stars.

He says the milestone is something he'll reflect on when the time is right. 

"I didn't think in my wildest dreams I'd get to this point in my career and it's been a great journey and I've had some fantastic memories along the way, and hopefully a few more coming through. It's been a hell of a ride," Ziebell said.

"I remember when I first started a few of the older guys, Drew Petrie, Boomer Harvey, Michael Firrito said to me I needed to really enjoy my footy career because it goes very, very quickly and I remember sitting there laughing at those blokes [thinking] I've got 10, 15 years and this'll be great.

"This is my 14th year and truer words have never been spoken by those guys. It does go very quick."

Whether it be game one or game 400, no AFL player has ever reached any milestone with only themselves to thank. It takes a village to raise a footballer and for Ziebell it's no different.

Drafted into the side with the ninth pick of the 2008 NAB AFL Draft, Ziebell found his way to Arden Street ahead of Dani Laidley's final season at the helm. He then played under interim coach Darren Crocker before Brad Scott, Rhyce Shaw and now David Noble took the reins.

Always the team man, Ziebell has played forward, in the middle and, more recently, out of the backline for his beloved Kangaroos. He says he's looking forward to drawing on his experience to help his side back up the ladder.

"My motivation right now has probably changed a little bit over the last couple of years to help guide our younger core players through this transition phase and get our club back to where it belongs as quick as we possibly can," he said.

"It's funny how over your career you go from different ways of motivating yourself. In the early part you're just hellbent on getting a game and once you get a game you want to continue to play senior footy. Once you've established yourself in the team you want to start to win and then after that your motivations change a bit from year to year.

"When I first started we were down towards the bottom end of the ladder and that build was a hell of a journey to get to that point where we were in back-to-back preliminary finals in 2014 and 2015.

"For me using that experience with these guys at the moment, I want them to experience that as quickly as possible because it's the pinnacle of why we play footy.

"There's some tough times when you're going through what we're going through at the moment, it takes sometimes some thick skin to get through it but I know the core of our group and what we stand for and what we want to achieve."