Cooper will take the reigns until 2020 and arrives at Dockers as the successor to inaugural AFLW coach Michelle Cowan. 

“I’m really looking forward to working with the girls down at Freo and looking for some success fairly quickly,” Cooper said.

Due to his work in women’s football, Cooper has already formed relationships with a handful of current players as well as many from the upcoming 2018 draft class.

“The WAFC’s high performance program includes a lot of the mature age players who Freo will be looking to draft for the 2019 season,” Cooper said. 

Kara Donnellan has worked with Cooper previously and is looking forward to having him on board at the club.

“Over the past couple of years he’s really invested himself in the women’s game and continually worked on how to coach the women’s game, as there’s a lot of differences to the men’s," she said.