North Melbourne greats Brent Harvey and Wayne Carey have resolved a spat that threatened to mar Saturday’s major AFL milestone. Harvey will play his 427th AFL match this Saturday night, breaking the all-time record that Hawthorn legend Michael Tuck has held since 1991.

Extracts from Harvey’s new book Boomer were published on the weekend and in it the Kangaroos veteran was highly critical of Carey but said on Monday he had apologised to his former captain. In the book, Harvey described Carey’s extra-marital affair with the wife of their then teammate Anthony Stevens as “despicable”.

The book also alleged North paid hush money to protect Carey’s reputation. Carey duly hit back on radio, saying it was sad that Harvey had sensationalised allegations of events that had never happened. He flatly denied North paid any hush money to protect him. Harvey said Carey rang him on Sunday night to sort out their differences.

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“For me, a lot of it was rumour ... it wasn’t fact,” Harvey said on Monday. “In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have put it in the book, but unfortunately I have. He has a lot of rumours in his life and you probably could write a whole book on the (rumours) and Wayne Carey. For me, I just want to put it on the table right now, that was rumour and innuendo and I apologised to him, he accepted that, which is fantastic.”

Harvey said that there is a plan for Carey to interview him on television after Saturday night’s game if North win. Harvey added he would meet with coach Brad Scott in the next couple of weeks to look at whether he keeps playing beyond this season. “Absolutely, if the club says yes, I have no doubt the body and the mind would hold up for another pre-season,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll go deep into September - and even early October - and then another pre-season.”

Harvey also wants the focus kept on beating St Kilda this week as much as possible. The Kangaroos are eighth and the Saints are the biggest threats to their finals hopes. “Obviously I’ve spoken to Brad about everything and like my 400th, the whole focus will be about beating the Saints, who are in really good form,” he said. “We’ll try to keep it not about me as much as I can and more about the team.

“When you run out with your kids and your family is there, they present you with your jumper or whatever we decide to go, it gets a little bit emotional. But it won’t be over the top.”