Boogaard has been awarded an A-League-record 11 Red Cards.

To put that into perspective, Victory defender Kevin Muscat is a distant second with five.

But with a better mindset the Jets captain senses a massive 2017 for the Hunter club.

“For me I want to have a much better season than last year and be part of something special,” he says. “With the squad we’ve got here we can definitely achieve something this season.”

The tall defender is also looking to nulify those send offs this season as well.

“I was a little bit disappointed with my own performance last year, he said. "Maybe I tried a little bit too hard. I was obviously back home, first time playing for Newcastle which is something I never thought I would get the opportunity to do. Then being honoured with being captain so that was another responsibility and maybe I tried to do too much on the park and gave away silly fouls.

“I do hold that record but I don’t think anyone can say any of those send offs were malicious. In terms of that I just need to be smarter and better because we can’t afford to miss key players. That was our challenge last year we were ill disciplined when it came to certain areas of the game.”

After the pre-season departure of Scott Miller and Luciano Trani, Boogaard says the appointments of Mark Jones and Clayton Zane bring stability to the club.  

“It’s a great appointment in terms of two locals,” he said. “A lot Newcastle people believe that if the locals are good enough then why not give them the opportunity. So it’s great that the club has the foresight to do that and it’s a very educated bunch of football supporters up here for Newcastle. It’s a great history up here and they’re part of that history as both coaches and players."

Jets CEO Lawrie McKinna said with the support of new owners Ledman Group, Newcastle fans should be excited about the club's prospects this season.

“The place is buzzing," he said.

"They are positive with what’s happening, the see that the squad is coming together. The big thing for us was that we needed to stabilise the club and we are doing that now. And the fans appreciate that and they are seeing that and they are getting behind the club and we just need to delivering on the field to get the coming and support the team.

“They don’t want to be opening the pages up of the daily local newspaper and see scandal bills aren’t getting paid and what’s happening in the past, they just want to know that the team is performing 100% and given them something to be proud of.”