 He was first selected for the Wallabies in 1979.With a number of those players he was a young starter in the 1980 Wallaby side which won the Bledisloe Cup in Sydney in the 3rd and deciding game that year.O'Connor scored a try in this game marking his ascendancy in representative rugby and coinciding with a rebirth of Australian rugby and the beginning of a golden period through to the Grand Slam achievement of 1984.