THE PAIN GAME

Cooper implementing new measures to curb rise in serious injuries in the women's game

- TAYLOR MURRAY

Kate Cooper has opened up about how she is implementing “preventative” measures into the younger year groups after constant injury issues.

The St Mirren Women head coach is looking to tackle a major problem in the women's game with players regularly suffering knee and hip problems on top of standard foot, ankle and leg injuries.

One significant long-term injury that is becoming more frequent has been the number of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears cropping up.

And Cooper admits players are struggling to get the help they need due to a lack of funding.

"One of the things that I do see at the senior level is a lot of them coming with historically-old injuries that haven't really recovered completely," she explained to Express Sport.

"Eventually, they're getting serious injuries as they're older because it’s just an inevitable outcome of how they're not fully recovering.