It’s a motto the likeable Arendarcikas has lived by.

“I played with legends of the club like Peter Duck and Peter Cross, along with dad (Algy) and my Uncle Ron  and they taught me how to play cricket the right way,” he said.

“I was told when you’re down, you can either submit, or work your way out of it.”

And he’s been working ever since.

The 39-year-old captain will become the first player in St Patrick’s history to play 300 grade games.

But it didn’t necessarily start too well.

“I wanted to be a fast bowler, but my first coach in the under 14s Anthony Duck said to me, ‘we need a spin bowler, and you can’t bowl pace anyway’,” he laughed.

“Essentially in under 14s any bloke that can bowl slow and turn the ball a bit, they get every wicket,” Anthony Duck said.

“We went through the season undefeated.”

Arendarcikas debuted in 1992-93, but after the early success in the lower grades, it was a baptism of fire in first grade.

“We were playing North Albury and (West Indian paceman) Kelvin Williams was in his prime,” he said.

“He’d just broken Chris Haynes’ wrist and I thought, ‘gee, this first grade is pretty fair dinkum’.

“And then when I was bowling I dropped Rod Barton, which would have been my first wicket.

“I thought I would have been dropped to the 2’s the next week.”

He wasn’t, and instead grabbed a 5-for.

“For the first three or four years, we never got off the bottom,” he said.

That started to change in the late-90s.

“Mick O’Donnell took over and we really took off,” long-time St Pat’s team-mate Heath Naughton said.

“We were great off-field, you could have thrown a blanket over us, we were that close.

“But on-field, Kane, Dean Carroll and myself made a stand, we were sick and tired of losing.”

“Having played with him you can see the respect from team-mates, they respect him more than anyone else at St Pat’s,” one-time opponent then team-mate Andrew Lade said.

“He’s a brilliant fellow, and when the chips are down, he always stands up,” Tallangatta’s Steve Wood said.

Arendarcikas’s statistics are impressive enough.

More than 5000 runs at 21.48, with a highest score of 98 against Wodonga, and 487 wickets at just under 21.

He’s played in seven grand finals, for two premierships, including the 32-year drought breaker in 2003-04.

“We had our pants out of our backside at one stage in my early days, so to come through and win meant so much to everyone,” he said.

“And at St Pat’s, everybody is treated the same.”

His milestone match coincides with the debut of Ben Jones and Sam Azzi against East Albury on Saturday.