League: Emotional milestone for Price

Steve Price shares the occasion with Queensland league hero Bob Lindner. Photo / Getty Images

Warriors' captain Steve Price celebrated his 300th game in the NRL by blitzing the statistics as he led the side to their season opening win over Parramatta, and said afterwards that he wouldn't be considering retirement while he can still do that.

Price gained 188m in 22 runs (the next-best Warrior was the fullback Wade McKinnon with 151m and the best of the Eels was Feleti Mateo with 132m) as well as making 25 tackles.

He admitted he'd been drained by the emotion of the build-up to the match.

Family came over from Australia to celebrate the milestone and a brother arrived from England unexpectedly. Parramatta had a hand in bringing former Eel, State of Origin and Kangaroos player Bob Lindner over after learning from Price's book that Lindner had been his inspiration. Price has a story from his boyhood years at Newtown in Toowoomba where he was coached by Gary Czislowski.

"Gary said to us that year 'boys, I want you to go home and watch State of Origin tonight and whatever number you wear, find the player who wears the same number and do the same as him'.

"I used to wear number eight for Newton and the player I watched represent Queensland that night was Bob Lindner.

"I watched everything he did and I liked how he played. He wasn't a dirty player, he wasn't a player who got the big raps or the one who won games for his team but he always gave everything he had, particularly in Origin. I idolised him."

So it was Lindner who presented Price with his 2009 playing jersey, the playing strip embroidered with the name of missing-presumed-drowned teammate Sonny Fai and his playing number 138.

Price then handed out the first jersey to new prop Leeson Ah Mau while team newcomers Denan Kemp (Warrior number 144), Joel Moon (145) and Jacob Lillyman (146) were presented with their jerseys by Brent Tate, Stacey Jones and Logan Swann respectively.

The emotion for Price, the Warriors and the crowd was further ramped up with a minute of silence to mark Fai's career, the team forming a circle with one break in it for his spot.

Price said the challenge of helping the Warriors had reinvigorated him and probably extended his career. The decision as to whether he goes around for a 17th season at age 36 is approaching. "I've got to see how things go [in the next few games]. If you ask me right now, I'd love to play next year."