Josh Turnbull will savour the moment as he prepares to make his 200th Guinness PRO14 appearance as Cardiff Blues take on Scarlets on Friday.
The Welsh international will become the fifth player in the Championship’s history to achieve the milestone, with 114 of those appearances coming in Cardiff Blues colours and the rest for his home region and Friday’s opposition, Scarlets.
A consistent work-horse, Turnbull believes he’s become more durable over the past number of seasons and has learned to relish the big achievements in his career.
“I started noticing it last year at some point and seeing the numbers were creeping up closer to that 200 mark,” explained the experienced utility forward.
“I can still remember my first league game for Scarlets up in Edinburgh in 2008. It was quite early on in the season and only lasted 40 minutes because I got injured just before half time.
“I’ve had a better run since then and I’ve enjoyed it all. As you get older you start to appreciate it a bit more.
“You don’t get many of these achievements so you have to grasp them with both hands and enjoy the moments.
“As you get older, you get more durable and I’ve always felt that I’ve been consistent in my performances. Your body becomes used to the physicality and the bumps, and you know what you can play through and what you can’t play through.
“I’ve been able to maintain that for a number of years now and you’re able to pick up appearances week-by-week without letting your standards drop. You’ll have the odd games during a season where you might not hit the same numbers, but I’ve always prided myself on trying to be consistent and maintaining that.”
Turnbull’s 200th appearance in the Championship will see him over-taking John Barclay in the all-time appearance makers list, trailing Matthew Rees (202), Ross Ford (206), Glasgow Warriors’ Ian Keatley (212) and former Connacht talisman and record holder, John Muldoon (254).
The 32-year-old is determined to do his best to over-take the Irishman at the summit and enjoys reflecting on some of the highlights of his Guinness PRO14 career to date.
“200 is just a start! John Muldoon is on the top at the moment but I’ve got a couple more years left in these legs and I’m going to go after that quite hard,” added Turnbull.
“If would be quite nice to be up there when I do decide to hang up the boots. There are some good guys up there and Ian Keatley is still playing.
“It would be nice to chase down someone like Matthew Rees and then pick them off one-by-one.
“John Muldoon didn’t get much international recognition but he was a club stalwart for Connacht. Every week he’d be there, banged up and playing.
“He ended up winning a league trophy with Connacht when they had a blinding season.
“254 is some number to chase down and to get close to that would be some achievement.
“There are a couple of games that stand out like two years ago when we did the double over Scarlets. I was named man of the match down there and then at home we out 40 on them before half time. They didn’t really know what had hit them.
“So that was enjoyable, as was doing the double over Ospreys, and was something I’d never done for either Scarlets or Cardiff Blues.
“Other big games I remember was with the Scarlets when we got to a play-off semi-final against Ulster and just missed out. That was a tough one because we had a good group of boys who had come through together and played a lot of rugby together.
“So that was a tough one and I’ve been on the end of some big defeat. I remember playing for Scarlets against Ospreys on Boxing Day and we ended up getting two or three red cards, four yellow cards and were absolutely slaughtered. That wasn’t such a good memory, and one I’ll remember for the wrong reasons.
“But I’ve enjoyed it over the years and I’m still striving the get better every week and play as many games as possible.”
However, it will be business as usual at Parc y Scarlets for Turnbull, who will move within two appearances of his 150th appearance since moving to Cardiff Blues in 2014.
He admits that reaching the milestone against his home region will be special but the performance and result against Cardiff Blues’ Conference B rivals is at the forefront of his mind, as his side look for back-to-back victories over the west Wales outfit.
The 10-times capped international said: “I’d made my 100th league appearance in my first year at the Blues, so it will be pretty even in the numbers between both sides.
“But to go down to Parc y Scarlets, especially after playing against them two weeks ago, and try to do it all over again will be fun.
“With the way we played that day, we need to try to replicate that and do better.
“It would be a nice icing on the cake if we get the ‘W’ alongside my 200th appearance in the league.
“With the way we’ve worked at the tail end of last week and the beginning of this week, we’re set to go down there and really put in another big performance, especially after the way we controlled the majority of the game last time, in terms of our physicality and the way Tomos and Jarrod controlled the game and played at tempo.
“We want to go down there and do that again but try to do better again.
“We know what the Scarlets are going to be like and they have a few boys back in the mix which strengthens their squad. But for us it’s about worrying about ourselves.”