VETERAN Leeds forward Jamie Jones-Buchanan has banished any immediate thoughts of retirement as he prepares to make his 400th appearance for his club at Hull tomorrow night.

The former England international, who is the longest-serving player in Super League, having started out in May 1999, will become only the 14th player in the club’s 123-year history to reach the landmark and follow in the footsteps of former teammates Kevin Sinfield, Rob Burrow and Danny McGuire.

“If you divide it by 20 years, it’s only 20 games a season, but it’s pretty special,” he said.

“It’s still as exciting and as honourable now as it was on day one. It’s been a great journey and, if I could play another 400, I would.”

Jones-Buchanan, who turns 37 on August 1, is on a rolling contract with Leeds, just like his coach Brian McDermott, and is happy to take it a year at a time.

“I just keep turning up for pre-season,” he said.

“I reckon I’ll keep plodding on. I’ll think about it in the summer, but, if I’m contributing and Brian still thinks I’ve a role to play, then I’ll keep playing.”

The tough-tackling second rower has missed only one of the Rhinos’ 11 games so far this season, having been ordered to sit out the Easter Monday game against Salford.

“I put my hand up for that as well, but Brian is a bit smarter than me and he said have a rest,” Jones-Buchanan said.

“As you get older, you get a bit smarter in terms of what your body can do.”

Jones-Buchanan has begun working in the media in his spare time — he is also a key figure in the production of a documentary about the Rhinos’ treble-winning season of 2015 which will premiere at this month’s Leeds International Festival — and plans to become even more involved when he finally hangs up the boots.

“I’d very much want to be a part of the club, but I love rugby league in general,” he said.

“There’s not enough people to tell rugby league stories and there’s not enough players who steward the game well enough.

“Why hasn’t the game immortalised Tom Briscoe, a lad from Featherstone who scored five tries at Wembley? If this was the NFL, somebody would have made a 40-minute documentary that would be worthy of Netflix or Amazon.

“When Eddie Hearn says he doesn’t know any rugby players, I’m not surprised because we don’t tell any stories about rugby players and, when we do, they’re just not good enough.

“But I’m not blaming anybody. I can only point the finger inward and ask myself what am I doing to tell those stories. I’m really happy I’m doing a little bit and, when I do finish, that’s what I want to carry on doing.”

More immediately, Jones-Buchanan will try to help his side get back to winning ways at Hull following their last-gasp home defeat by Wigan which saw the defending champions drop out of the top four.

“We also had a narrow defeat against Cas and we drew against Huddersfield, so you kick yourselves a little bit because add another 2 or 3 per cent to those performances and we’re potentially five points further up the league,” he said.

“We can’t afford to keep dropping them because Wigan, Saints, Cas and Warrington are doing really well and we need to stick with that pack.

“Hull will be of the same mentality. They had a decent second-half performance at Widnes last Thursday.

“They looked strong and Lee Radford will be looking for a Grand Final and top-four finish.

“It’s going to be a tough game, but we just need to learn from last week.”