Taken at pick 66 in the National Draft, Luke Ryan is proving his ability as a reliable defender and impressing not only coach Ross Lyon but his teammates since debuting in round 11 this season.

The Melbourne-born, mature age draftee is rising to the occasion with some impressive stats over the past few games.

Ryan was the round 20 NAB AFL Rising Star nomination after collecting a career-best 28 disposals and taking nine intercept marks in Fremantle’s 23-point win over Gold Coast at Domain Stadium.

Following Ryan’s performance on Saturday night, teammates Lachie Neale and Cam McCarthy were full of praise for Ryan.

“He’s come on in leaps and bounds of the past few weeks and even last week he was really good against GWS. He’s building some really solid form and for a first year player it’s really impressive,” Neale said.

“Hopefully, he continues that over the next few weeks and has another really good pre-season and we can see more of that from Luke next year.”

Cam McCarthy was also really impressed with how Ryan is performing.

“He’s unreal he’s going to be a gun, he’s going to be a great player for the footy club for the next 10 years, he’s going to be unreal,” McCarthy said.