Since becoming a member of the Australian Football League (AFL) in 1995, there have been six permanent senior coaches of the Fremantle Football Club men's team, and three of the women's team. There have also been three caretaker coaches, who coached for short periods after the permanent coach was sacked or unavailable.
The Fremantle Women's football team has played in the AFL Women's league since its inauguration in 2017. Michelle Cowan was the inaugural coach, before her resignation in April 2017. Trent Cooper coached the team from the 2019 AFL Women's season [1] until he was replaced by former player Lisa Webb in 2023.
# | Coach | Seasons | Total games | Finals games | Grand Final appearances | Premiership wins | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G | W | L | D | Win% | G | W | L | Win% | |||||
1 | Gerard Neesham | 1995–1998 | 88 | 32 | 56 | 0 | 36.4 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
2 | Damian Drum | 1999–2001 [a] | 53 | 13 | 40 | 0 | 24.5 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
3 | Ben Allan † | 2001 [a] | 13 | 2 | 11 | 0 | 18.2 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
4 | Chris Connolly | 2002–2007 [b] | 129 | 67 | 62 | 0 | 51.9 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 25.0 | — | — |
5 | Mark Harvey | 2007 [b] –2011 [c] | 97 | 39 | 58 | 0 | 40.2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 50.0 | — | — |
6 | Ross Lyon | 2012–2019 [d] | 184 | 96 | 87 | 1 | 52.4 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 44.4 | 1 | 0 |
7 | David Hale † | 2019 [d] | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
8 | Justin Longmuir | 2020– | 95 | 47 | 46 | 2 | 50.5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 50.0 | — | — |
9 | Jaymie Graham † | 2022 [e] | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 100.0 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
# | Coach | Seasons | Total games | Finals games | Grand Final appearances | Premiership wins | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G | W | L | D | Win% | G | W | L | Win% | |||||
1 | Michelle Cowan | 2017–2018 | 14 | 4 | 9 | 1 | 32.1 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
2 | Trent Cooper | 2019–2022 (S7) | 47 | 30 | 16 | 1 | 64.9 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 40.0 | — | — |
3 | Lisa Webb | 2023– | 10 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 40.0 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
# | Number of coaches |
G | Games coached |
W | Wins |
L | Losses |
D | Draws |
Win% | Winning percentage |
† | Caretaker coach |
The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of Fremantle, a stronghold of Australian rules football in Western Australia. The Dockers were the second team from the state to be admitted to the competition, following the West Coast Eagles in 1987. Both Fremantle and the West Coast Eagles are owned by the West Australian Football Commission (WAFC), with a board of directors operating Fremantle on the commission's behalf.
Robert Jeffrey Harvey is an Australian rules football coach and former player. He is currently an assistant coach for the St Kilda Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). As a player, he played his entire career with St Kilda in the AFL. Following retirement, Harvey embarked on a career in assistant coaching which has spanned across three decades, highlighted by a nine-game stint as caretaker head coach of the Collingwood Football Club in 2021.
Mark Harvey is a former Australian rules football player and coach. He played over 200 games during fourteen seasons with the Essendon Football Club, winning three premierships, and was senior coach of Fremantle from 2007 to 2011. In August 2013, he took over as interim senior coach of the Brisbane Lions following the resignation of Michael Voss as senior coach. From 2015 until 2020, Harvey served as an assistant coach at the Essendon Football Club.
John Richard Worsfold is a former Australian rules football coach and player. He was the senior coach of the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL) between October 2015 and September 2020. He previously had a long association with the West Coast Eagles as player (1987–1998) and coach (2002–2013), captaining the club to premierships in 1992 and 1994 and coaching the club to a premiership in 2006.
Chris Connolly is a former Australian rules football player, coach and administrator, most notable for his six years as senior coach of the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League.
Grant Thomas is a former Australian rules football player and coach. He most recently held the position of coach of the St Kilda Football Club from 2001–2006. He attended St Bede's College in Mentone.
Dean Solomon is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club and the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Solomon served as caretaker senior coach with the Gold Coast Football Club for the last 3 games of the 2017 season, following the departure of senior coach Rodney Eade on 7 August 2017.
John Barker is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Fitzroy Football Club, Brisbane Lions and Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Benjamin Thomas Allan is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Hawthorn Football Club and Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL), and for the Claremont Football Club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL).
David Teague is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for North Melbourne and Carlton in the Australian Football League and was the senior coach of the Carlton Football Club, from 2019 to 2021. Teague is an assistant coach with the Richmond Football Club.
Justin Longmuir is a former Australian rules footballer who is the current senior coach of the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Longmuir played for Fremantle between 1999 and 2007.
Brett Ratten is an Australian rules football coach and former player in the Australian Football League (AFL). He played 255 games for the Carlton Football Club between 1990 and 2003, including the club's 1995 premiership. He then served as Carlton's senior coach from 2007 to 2012. After a seven-year stint as an assistant coach with Hawthorn and St Kilda, in 2019 he was appointed as St Kilda's senior coach, a role he held until his sacking at the end of the 2022 AFL season. Ratten was also the caretaker senior coach at North Melbourne during Alastair Clarkson's leave of absence.
Samuel Mitchell is an Australian rules football coach and former player who is the current coach of the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League.
Ross Lyon is a former Australian rules football player and the current senior coach of the St Kilda Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He previously coached St Kilda from 2007 to 2011 and the Fremantle Football Club from 2012 to 2019. He played for Fitzroy and the Brisbane Bears from 1985 to 1995.
Alastair Thomas Clarkson is an Australian rules football coach and former player. He is currently the head coach of the North Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL) and was previously head coach of the Hawthorn Football Club from 2005 to 2021, where he won four premierships.
Scott Watters is a former Australian rules football player and coach. As a player, he was drafted from the South Fremantle Football Club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) to the West Coast Eagles in the Australian Football League (AFL) in 1988. He later played for the Sydney Swans and Fremantle. He was a member of the 1985 Teal Cup winning side, the first year that Western Australia had won the national championships. As a coach, he started his career in 2006 with WAFL team Subiaco, followed by a stint as an assistant coach with the Collingwood Football Club from 2010 to 2011. Watters then became the senior coach of the St Kilda Football Club, following Ross Lyon's departure, for two seasons from 2012 to 2013.
David Hale is an Australian rules football coach and former player who is currently serving as an assistant coach with the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League. As a player, he played with the North Melbourne Football Club and Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League.
Dean Bailey was an Australian rules football player and coach. He played for the Essendon Football Club and was the senior coach of the Melbourne Football Club, as well as an assistant coach at Essendon and Port Adelaide and the Strategy & Innovation Coach at the Adelaide Football Club. Bailey died of lung cancer on 11 March 2014.
Michelle Cowan is an Australian rules football coach who was the inaugural head coach of the Fremantle Football Club in the AFL Women's competition (AFLW).
Trent Aaron Cooper is a former Australian rules footballer and coach. Cooper was the senior coach of Fremantle Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW) for five seasons before departing the club in November 2022 after not being offered a new contract.