You could call it the “go-away” factor. Brisbane Lions ruckman Stefan Martin, who had begun his career with Melbourne, was settled in his new home and enjoying a career-best run of form that saw him claim his first best and fairest award (shared with Dayne Beams, Dayne Zorko and Mitch Robinson).

And yet, he looked to be on the move. The Western Bulldogs, whom Martin had taken apart in round 22, were potential suitors. Essendon, too. And so was Hollywood – the preferred long-term destination of Martin's partner, aspiring actor Madeline Ryan, who was on the hunt for new opportunities in a bigger city.

Martin was faced with a dilemma, wanting to accommodate the ambitions of his partner while finding a way to finish his career at the club where he had finally found himself as a footballer.

"She's a Brissie girl, so it's sort of ironic that she might be pulled to other cities, and I'm not from here, and I'm the one wanting to stick around," he told The Age newspaper.

Thankfully for the Lions, the 29-year-old Martin has signed an extension that will see him remain at the club until at least the end of the 2018 season, with an agreement that will enable him to take time off when needed to maintain a relationship likely to be punctuated by lengthy periods apart.

"She went to Canada midway through last year, and she's going back in January for about four months or so to give it a go at pilot season, when they try to get the movies and the TV shows to air," he said.

"Opportunity wise, she would probably be better to be in a bigger city, [but] I've still got a lot to do in my own career, so I think we will probably just have to work out a way to keep it going long distance.

"We have to have a long-term view of what's best for us as well. And having a long-term contract will help us out in life after footy, so we're just going to suck it and see how it goes."

Martin is the archetypal late-blooming big man; an ex-basketballer who didn't take up the game until he was 19. While not overly tall for a modern ruckman at 197cm, he is immensely strong, and comes into his own when the ball is in play, linking up to be an extremely effective extra midfielder.

While Todd Goldstein, Nic Naitanui and Aaron Sandilands remained the ruck benchmarks in season 2015, so good was Martin's form – he averaged more than 20 disposals and 32 hit-outs per game – that he forced established ruckman Matthew Leuenberger (now with Essendon) to look elsewhere for opportunities.

Martin, who began his career as a full-back, says the continuity provided by being first-choice ruckman has been critical to his improvement. He first showed his potential in the position at the Demons in 2011, when Mark Jamar was injured. But Jamar returned, and Martin himself endured an injury-hit 2012 before being traded.

At the Lions, he was recruited as a backup for Leuenberger and Trent West. But when both went down in 2014, Martin grabbed his chance and hasn't let it go since.

Playing second ruck, he said, was an unforgiving task. "You've got to spend a lot of time on the bench and a lot of time diluting your output in a different position, so maybe you're judged a bit harshly.

"You get compared against other forwards with your output, but you're not in the forward line for as long, and then you probably to a degree get compared with a sole ruck with output and then you're not in the ruck as long.

"It's nice to be able to specialise in a position and really just work towards having a good game over the 120 minutes as opposed to being diluted."

He's also far more confident in his body holding together. "I treat it like a machine, a tool of my trade, so I take it a lot more seriously and invest a lot more of my time into it.

"If you don't take all that much care with your body then it probably betrays you a bit; if there's a weak part in the chain it'll be the thing that fails you."