On Friday Kantarovski led from the front as he, teammates Jason Hoffman and Glen Moss and coach Ernie Merrick donated for the Australian Red Cross.

"It's a great cause to get behind," Kantarovski said,

"I think there's one in three Australians that need blood [transfusions] over the course of their lives, so it's a great thing to be able to do."

With 180 A-League games for his home-town club, Kantarovski is poised this season to become the first Jets player to rack up a double-century of appearances.

"At the end of the day, you just want to play as many games as you can," he said.

"You never know with life as a footballer how or where it's going to go.

"It's amazing to have played in so many games, and to have done it all here in Newcastle has been a real privilege.

"To be able to reach that 200-game milestone would be a great honour, and I'll be working hard to play as many as I can this season, and hopefully we can be successful and win all of them."

Asked if he felt 300 games was achievable, the 27-year-old replied: "I think just take it one game, one training session, one week at a time."

An A-League debutant when he was a 16-year-old schoolboy, Kantarovski has overcome a series of injury setbacks to forge a career of which he is rightly proud.

And touch wood, he should have more than a few good seasons ahead of him.

"I think every footballer says they feel young, but some days it's a little bit harder to be young," he said.

The midfield workhorse said the disappointment of missing the play-offs last season - after Newcastle finished runners-up in 2017-18 - ensured pre-season training was of high intensity.

"No one likes to be outside the finals, and that was definitely the case for us, given how well we did the year before," he said. "Going into this season, it's even more motivation ... we've got some good young players, and to be able to bolster the squad with our new striker [Panama international Abdiel Arroyo] will be really good."