Riley, who played 23 games during her stints at Adelaide and Gold Coast Suns, is returning to her hometown Ballarat and will work with the boys and girls teams.

The 2017 Crows premiership player is excited to get stuck into her role at the Rebels.

"I've always wanted to get into coaching post-playing career so to come back and do that in Ballarat is pretty awesome," Riley said.

"I've done quite a bit while I was teaching and playing over the last five years at AFLW and I'm super passionate about coaching, especially at the development level and I want to pass back what I've learnt.

"I didn't get the chance to play footy in Ballarat because there was no competition for women. To come back into the Rebels' changerooms and see the faces of so many women who have joined the AFLW competition is incredible for women's football."

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Eight of 13 NAB League regions now have women on their coaching panels working with the boys and girls programs.

According to an AFL media release, there are 1537 women in coaching across the country, marking six per cent of all accredited coaches nationally.

Seventy-three per cent of women in coaching are leading women's football teams, 10 per cent are coaching men's teams and 17 per cent are coaching mixed junior teams.

Riley was part of the inaugural AFLW draft in 2016. She was vice-captain at Adelaide Crows.

GWV players Jamieson Ballantyne (Portland), Hamish Sinnott (Camperdown) and Josh Rentsch (Penshurst) are the south-west's representatives at this year's draft combine. It's on October 9 and/or 10 in Melbourne.

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