Shades of 2022: Why this Cats defender should be in Rising Star conversations

The 2025 Rising Star award has become one of the more intriguing races in recent memory, as several candidates look primed to poll strongly for the AFL's young player of the year award.

Levi Ashcroft has dominated in his first season despite being forced to play as a winger at Brisbane, averaging over 20 disposals per game.

Adelaide's Dan Curtin has also exploded onto the scene in the second half of this season, racking up at least 20 disposals in five of his last six matches.

Meanwhile out west, Murphy Reid's instantly become an electric goal-sneak for the Dockers in their hunt for a top four spot throughout 2025.

However, there's one top candidate yet to be mentioned; a name that has rarely been considered in the Rising Star conversation since being nominated back in Round 2, despite playing a key role in a premiership contender's stout defence.

20-year-old key defender Connor O'Sullivan is the midst of a season seen just twice before in the last 14 years of the AFL. While Geelong's success has stemmed from a number of factors, quite frankly, not enough people are talking about O'Sullivan's impact for the perennial contender.

Here's a list of players to average at least six marks, one contested mark and two intercept marks at the age of 21 or younger since 2012.

That's it.

Those 2.3 intercept marks per game place O'Sullivan as Geelong's third best intercept in their backline, just shy of Tom Stewart and Jack Henry, while he also garners 5.8 intercept possessions per game.

It's a season extremely comparable to Jake Lever's 2017 season with Adelaide, where at just 21 years old, he was one of the league leaders in intercept marks, providing the 'power stance Crows' a top four defensive unit.

The difference between Lever and O'Sullivan, however, is that prior to Lever's elite 2017 campaign, he had already featured at AFL level 36 times. O'Sullivan had one AFL game to his name before the 2025 season.

O'Sullivan's rapid ascension into one of Geelong's best defenders has been crucial to their success.

The Cats have faced several weeks with a depleted back six, notably for over a month when Jack Henry was sidelined with a hamstring strain.

Even in matchups where O'Sullivan's lack of experience has gone against him, it's impossible to ever fault his effort in those one-on-one contests, which is why Chris Scott has such heavy trust in the young gun.

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"The one that should excite Geelong supporters is Connor O'Sullivan. He's growing with each game he plays and his confidence to jump at the ball is exciting," Scott said following Geelong's 44-point win over Essendon.

"It's exciting for us to sit back and think Connor O'Sullivan and Sam De Koning can play together for another 10 or 15 years; that would be a pretty good combination based on what we're seeing at the moment."

O'Sullivan is one of two players aged 21 or younger to average at least 4.5 spoils and 1.5 defensive one-on-one contests per game this season; the other is Reuben Ginbey.

The last player to achieve that feat for Geelong? Sam De Koning in 2022, the year the Cats last won the premiership.

Understandably, the Rising Star race in 2025 is significantly different to the race from 2022, but De Koning's efforts that season were rewarded strongly at the voting count, finishing in second place by 12 votes to Nick Daicos.

It would feel unjustified for O'Sullivan to not claim similar respect from the voters this year.

Of course, there are strong argument to be made for a lot of the Rising Star contenders this year, with several of them impacting weekly for a Finals calibre side.

It's important to remember that O'Sullivan falls into that category too, however.

While he may not electrify a crowd with a running goal (though his mark of the year contender against Essendon may suggest otherwise), he's certainly built as good of a resume as any other young gun vying for this award.