Not since his first year with Scottish Premier League outfit Falkirk in 2004/05 has the marksman notched up 13 goals in a season.

He equalled the milestone on the weekend as the defending Premiers escaped with a point against a slick Melbourne Victory in Launceston.

The draw, courtesy of a McBreen penalty, keeps the Gosford club on track for back-to-back Premierships and the big striker in pole position for the Golden Boot.

With 11 rounds still to go in the regular season he is three goals clear of Wellington Phoenix striker Jeremy Brockie and Victory wonderkid, Marco Rojas.

Kiwi Rojas, 21, squandered an opportunity to close the gap when he fluffed his own penalty attempt on the weekend.

McBreen says it would be nice to lift the trophy at the end of the year but has no plans to make it his swansong.

“Jeremy Brockie keeps texting me every week telling me he’s catching me – well, not this week,” he laughed.

“I’ll make sure I send him a text letting him know he’s a few more behind me and he’ll have to train a little bit harder.”

The Mariners have opened contract talks with their on-fire striker after he reached coach Graham Arnold’s 10-goal trigger for a new deal in the first 10 rounds.

“We’re in negotiations for a new deal and the club has basically said they will be offering me a new contract,” he said. “I always said I wanted to play until I’m 35 but now that I’m 35 I want to play until I’m 45.

“I still have a love for the game. I’m still passionate about it and I train very hard and I can’t imagine doing anything else over the next couple of years anyway.”

And he joked: “We’ll just have to get down and discuss it and I’ll try to get him from one year to 10 years and see how we go.”

If the Mariners’ goal machine holds on to seize the Golden Boot he will be the oldest player to do so since season one of the A-League.

Back then another Mariner Stewart Petrie, then 36, shared the honours with Bobby Despotovski (then 35) and relative youngsters Alex Brosque and Archie Thompson – all on eight goals.

McBreen has led the line for clubs in England, Scotland and Romania – not to mention A-league outfits Perth Glory and now-defunct North Queensland Fury – and puts his success down to the Mariners’ system and a top-class squad.

“It suits me down to the ground,” he said.

“When you look back at when I had a couple of good seasons at Falkirk I was the striker that led the line and faced goal more often with another striker dropping in deep to pick up the ball.

“The same when I was at Perth and scored a few goals over there – I had a number 10 behind me who was actually the one who came short to get the ball.

“For the rest of my career I’ve been more of a target man with my back to goal, bringing other people into play.

“I did a lot of work for the team and the other strikers around me whereas this season it seems to be the opposite where the guys are doing a lot of work for me, getting me into the box to get on the end of things and score the goals.

“And obviously when the team is playing so well it helps as well because we’re creating quite a few chances.”

McBreen is just as perplexed as his coach over the team’s lacklustre showing against Victory and says they will be keen to turn things around ahead of the F3 derby at home against Newcastle Jets on Saturday.

Whatever the reason for the sub-par performance that earned a rare half-time spray from Arnold, the striker is adamant is has nothing to do with transfer speculation surrounding key players Tom Rogic, Mat Ryan and Bernie Ibini.

“Last year we lost players and I’m sure the year before we did as well,” he said.

“That’s football especially when you’re in a league like the Australian league where players who are young and have a lot of potential are going to want to move on to bigger and better things overseas.

“The good thing about Arnie is that everyone in our squad, from number one to number 23 – and even four or five of the youth players who train with us regularly – know their jobs inside out when they come into the team.

“We know we’ve got a lot of young players in the squad who are potential targets for overseas clubs – for us it’s just another week in the office you know. We go out there and know that the guys who come in will do the job.”

And McBreen says there is plenty of talent coming through the ranks of their league-leading youth team.

“I don’t want to put any names out there because they’re only young guys but there’s a lot of potential in our youth team,” he said.

“I’m sure you’ll see in the next year or two them guys starting to creep into the first team equation and who knows, maybe a move for them overseas as well.”