But when the propeller of a Cessna 172 gashed his head open at Canberra Airport on Friday, he was just angry he would miss out on playing for the Raiders in their round one Toyota Cup under-20s game the following day.

The promising 19-year-old front-rower came within centimetres of death while working as a maintenance engineer at Canberra Airport. He has 14 stitches in his head to remind him of the accident and hopes scans today will clear him of any skull fractures or brain damage.

''I was doing a compression test on the cylinders of a Cessna 172 when one of the blokes cracked the air pressure in the cylinder when I wasn't ready,'' Appleton said.

''That started the propeller up and it's come round and sliced into my head.

''I could have died from that so I'm pretty lucky.

''It split my head right open, you could see the skull."

For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.