Jones ended a 15-match exile as he replaced Danny Coyne, and produced two excellent saves to deny Shane Long and Gylfi Sigurdsson as Boro extended their unbeaten home run to eight matches.
The Australian had been a target for the Riverside boo boys earlier in the season, and there were ironic cheers in the early stages of Saturday's game as he successfully claimed a routine cross.
The cheering that accompanied his stoppage-time save from Sigurdsson was rather more heartfelt, however, and Cooper feels the 28-year-old more than justified his recall.
It's not easy when you're getting a bit of stick from the fans at home, but they've got absolutely no reason to give Brad stick after that performance,
said the first-team coach, who attended the postmatch press conference in place of the absent Gordon Strachan.
I thought he commanded his area really well and made a couple of vital saves, one in each half. I think the gaffer just wanted to freshen things up a bit. Danny has come in and done very well this season, but we know what Brad can do and I thought he came in and did it superbly.
Jones' display was one of the highlights of an otherwise drab encounter that did little to improve Middlesbrough's play-off hopes.
The Teessiders are proving increasingly difficult to beat, but a run of three successive draws suggests they lack the killer instinct required to kill teams off.
Chances continue to remain at a premium, and while Chris Killen's second goal of the season briefly raised hopes of a Boro victory, Reading goalkeeper Adam Federici had little to do for the majority of the game.
We lacked a spark and that's disappointing, said Cooper. We're at a stage of the season now where you need to win your home games to push in the right direction.
We huffed and puffed but we just weren't good enough to win the game and a draw wasn't an unfair result.
It was a bit of a flat game at the end of a hard week.
Reading were hard to break down but we didn't help ourselves by passing it well enough. Chris Killen's goal gave us a boost, but we didn't push on to get the second.
We're three unbeaten but we haven't won any of them, so if we're to have any chance at this business end of the season to get into the play-off picture then we need to start winning.
Source: Northern Echo
Source: Northern Echo