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Kieran Foran hopes his battle through multiple career-threatening injuries and personal challenges to 300 NRL games can be an inspirational tale for others.

Kieran Foran considers one milestone even greater than the 300th NRL game he will chalk up against St George Illawarra in Wollongong.

Put simply, it's the 100 games he's played since suffering what many believed would be a career-ending shoulder injury while playing for New Zealand in 2019.

The Gold Coast halfback's journey to his 300th game on Sunday is perhaps the most remarkable of any of the other 52 men to have achieved the feat in the NRL.

One of the NRL's most robust halves on his debut in 2009, he won a premiership as a 21-year-old at Manly and had highly publicised personal issues as Parramatta.

For years, Foran's career appeared on the brink of a premature ending, before what many thought would be his last setback in 2019.

"That's something I am so grateful for and proud of," Foran told AAP. 

"It's just staying in the fight. If this could be an example or message to anyone out there, it's that good things can come in you stay in the fight.

"If you're prepared to keep at something when it's not going your way and you're up against it. You can pull through. 

"My career has been a testament to that."

Perhaps making Foran's road to 300 games more remarkable is that on more than one occasion in the middle of his career, there have been reports of a medical retirement.

They first emerged out of Canterbury in 2018 when Foran battled shoulder, hamstring, back and toe injuries, and reappeared again the following year after his dislocated shoulder while playing for New Zealand.

Foran has said he never had any concrete discussions around retiring early, but is the first to admit he privately had doubts over whether he could return from the dislocated shoulder in 2019.

"A lot of the early chat from those two major surgeries was pretty much the shoulder would be pretty buggered," Foran said. 

"They weren't sure how I would continue playing. They'd say: 'We're not really sure if the shoulder would be capable of getting through the rigours of NRL any more'.

"There were times when privately I would come home from training after the fourth or fifth surgery, and the noise was growing louder and I had moments of doubt.

"I'd got to 26 or 27 or 28 and my body just fell apart. Just through sheer wear and tear and not looking after it the way I should have in the early stages of my career. 

"I would say to the missus: 'Is it worth me keeping going if I'm not playing the footy I want to play? Is my body going to get back to where I need it to?'."

Foran has done that and more.

And remarkably, he seems further from the end at his 300th game than he did when he played his 200th four years ago.

The playmaker has re-signed for 2025 and sees no reason why he can't continue beyond that under Des Hasler on the Gold Coast.

He is playing smarter now than he did five years ago, making the most of a lifeline handed to him by Hasler at Manly at the end of 2020.

Foran is also able to train more now than he was five years ago, after realising a conservative approach to his workload was causing some of the issues.

This year has also been the 34-year-old's best in close to a decade, setting up more tries than he has in any season since he first left Manly at the end of 2015.

"You start to learn to play with more time and wisdom. It has allowed me to look after myself better," Foran said.

"I am a completely changed man and player altogether through life and footy experiences.

"When I compare myself to back then, I feel like I am a far more complete player now than I was at Game 100."