A Canberra teenager could be on the verge of joining some of the AFL's biggest names after GWS Giants prospect Riley Hamilton put the competition on notice with a Rising Star nomination.
A superb shift against Geelong saw Hamilton earn a Rising Star nomination, putting the Canberra product in the mix to join the likes of Nick Daicos, Ben Cousins, Nathan Buckley as a winner of the title given to the best young player in the league.
Hamilton realised a dream when he made his AFL debut for the Giants in an upset win over the league-leading Fremantle Dockers at Manuka Oval earlier this month.
He backed it up with two goals in another boilover against the Geelong Cats, registering seven score involvements and 15 disposals to help the Giants overturn a 39-point deficit and put themselves on the cusp of wildcard contention.
"Riley has come into the side and been really impressive and it's fantastic to see him rewarded with a Rising Star nomination," Giants general manager of football Jason McCartney said.
"After really strong form at VFL level he's certainly made the most of his opportunity in the AFL side and looked really comfortable at the level.
"To see him step up on the weekend and make a really strong contribution in our win over Geelong in just his second game was exciting for such a young player.
"He's continued to work hard since he arrived at the club and we're looking forward to seeing that continue and seeing what sort of player he can become for us in the future."
From a cardiac arrest at 22 that left him clinically dead during an indoor soccer match, to bravely venturing into the unexplored corners of the Arctic, it's fair to say Tarran Savage is making the most of his second chance at life.
The Canberran, now 30, has grabbed life by the horns since the frightening 2017 incident while playing sport that ultimately led to the discovery of a heart condition he never knew he had.
Savage departed Iceland on Friday crossing the Denmark Strait on a 60-foot steel hull sailboat called the Patagonia, embarking on an exciting 75-day private Arctic expedition up the west coast of Greenland to Ellesmere Island in Canada.
"I was still pretty young at the time when I had my cardiac arrest, but I think it's just pushed me to go out of the box, chase experiences, and not hesitate to do things I'd like to do," Savage said.
"There's no time like the present to try things, because you don't know what the future holds, you might not get another chance."
During the trip to areas rarely travelled, he and a nine-person crew from nine different nations will make a few stops for hikes and visit small towns.
They will also be out to conquer ski peaks never climbed before and capture rare footage of wild Ellesmere Island wolves and share what they document with National Geographic. They anticipate encountering other animals too, like polar bears, Arctic foxes, and muskoxen.
Savage has lived in Sweden and Norway in recent years on working holidays, and picked up his sailing qualification in Sydney, but he's never been on trips this long at sea, and certainly not through ocean littered with so many icebergs.
"We're doing stints with three or four days straight of sailing, through all sorts of rough weather, so I'm loaded up on sea-sickness tablets," Savage said.
"The issue with icebergs is if you turn late and it goes along the side of the boat. It's OK if we hit some, but we've got to be careful because we'll be going through some really isolated places like Tanquary Fiord near Canada where there's potentially no other boats around for several hundreds of kilometres."
The trip is self-funded by Savage and his crew-mates, with the expedition purely a passion project between like-minded explorers and nature-lovers, but he plans to document the journey on social media and hopefully attract some sponsors along the way to help with costs.
"We're going as far north as you can go in a private boat, 82 degrees north," Savage said.
"I'm very lucky that my heart condition was very serious, but also somewhat curable. I have a defibrillator implant.
"I've gotten my fitness back up, and I've really enjoyed challenging myself going out of my comfort zone. I just want to go for it and I won't let anything hold me back."
