Young, 42, played an eye-watering 300 club games for Heriot until he stopped in 2023.
Young, a prop, said it was not a mark he had particularly eyed up but once it came within view and he decided he would play long enough to get to the tally.
"But I did my rotator cuff in my shoulder a few weeks before and that was getting worse and worse.
"I just hung in there and got to 300," he said.
Young stopped playing as soon as he got to 300 and has managed to strengthen his shoulder over the past couple of years, though he doubted he would last five minutes if he went back playing.
"It was tough scrummaging.
"Just having to adapt to what was happening with my shoulder.
"I still enjoyed the playing and all the social side but the training was getting to me.
"There is nothing better than sitting in the changing rooms, having a beer, after a game."
He is now helping out with the fitness for the Heriot side, which he is enjoying.
Young had always played for Heriot. He started off in the age grade teams before moving to the senior side as a teenager and that is where he stayed.
"I actually started out at lock as we had quite a few front rowers.
"I was probably a bit leaner back then.
"But then I went into the front row and played both sides."
He said he started off at loosehead and then went over the tighthead which in the end is what he preferred.
"Dark arts there, you still have to know what you are doing.
"It takes three or four scrums to work out what your opponent is doing."
Young made an impression in his younger years and was part of the Otago squad in 2010, being on the bench in the titanic Ranfurly Shield challenge against Southland, which Otago narrowly lost.
"It was a pinch-me moment.
"A really cool experience to be sitting on the sideline at the shield game.
"It show you can get through and make it form the country."
He said Otago assistant coach Dave Latta was a real help to get him into the Otago scene but country players will always struggle in terms of getting exposure, though there is a pathway.
Young, who has an earthmoving contracting business and also helps out at a gym opened by wife Jessica, said he was really looking forward to the 140th anniversary celebrations.
"I can remember going to the 125th and that was a good time.
"It is not very often you get to go to two celebrations like this while you are still involved."
stephen.hepburn@alliedpress.co.nz
