West Coast great Ben Cousins among several ex-Eagles helping out Perth Demons WAFL colts

Ben Cousins has taken on a part-time coaching role with the Perth colts in a massive boost for the club’s young talent. The West Australian exclusively reported last month the Eagles great and premiership hero would take his most significant step back into the football world since his AFL retirement more than a decade ago and join the Demons in an off-field role. The announcement was met with a chorus of praise from the public for the 44-year-old, who has his life back on track after a long battle with drug addiction. The West can now reveal Cousins will help out with the Perth Demons’ WAFL colts in 2023, working under new coach Scott More, who has joined the side from Public Schools Association outfit Trinity College after previously being the club’s Futures coach. Cousins, who is one of a number of ex-West Coast players who will work with the colts side, will fittingly follow in his father Bryan’s footsteps to the Lathlain-based club. Bryan played 240 games in the 1970s and ‘80s and won a retrospective Sandover Medal in 1983. Fellow ex-Eagle and Collingwood winger Josh Smith will be the team’s midfield coach after retiring from the WAFL because of a frustrating run of injuries, while former West Coast Category-B rookie Brodie Riach is in his second season as talent manager. Moore, a former Perth player, replaces Michael Pratt who has since signed on as East Perth’s colts coach. Perth have a trio of the State’s most exciting draft prospects at their disposal including ruck Coen Livingstone, a West Coast Next Generation Academy talent who’s the nephew of Hawthorn champion Chance Bateman. Livingstone partnered fellow bottom-ager, Peel Thunder’s Mitch Edwards, in the ruck for the final three games of last season’s national under-18s carnival and also played in the AFL grand final curtain-raiser on the MCG alongside the country’s best 2023 talents. Speedster Aiden O’Driscoll, the younger brother of Fremantle pair Nathan and Emma, and highly-rated key defender Elijah Scoble are another couple of players to watch. O’Driscoll was the joint winner of Wesley College’s best-and-fairest last season as a Year 11. All three are part of the State 18s summer squad and are expected to feature prominently for the Black Swans in the under-18s championships later in the year. Perth finished eighth in the colts last year with a 5-11 record, a massive improvement from their winless 2021 campaign. The Demons’ pre-season training is set to resume next week after a Christmas and New Year break.