Cousins breaks new ground in bizarre behaviour Courtney Walsh
The Australian
April 14, 2010 EVEN for Ben Cousins with his troubled history, his witching hour behaviour on Sunday broke new ground.
Punching a teammate is nothing new for the Tiger.
His brawl with one of his best mates, Daniel Kerr, at the Claremont nightspot Club Bayview in 2002 left him with a broken arm and was the first indication something was seriously awry with the pin-up boy. Then there was his role in another incident near the end of his career as an Eagle -- one likely to feature in a book on Cousins said to be due for release at season's end -- that led to other former teammates fighting.
But to thump a mate in the hope of doing good? It's a first for Cousins and surely something that could happen only at Richmond.
The former Brownlow medallist, who will play with Coburg this weekend after being banned for a week for his part in the farce at Sydney's InterContinental Hotel following the loss to the Swans, yesterday admitted he was partly responsible for troubled Tiger Daniel Connors' battered look at an early morning recovery session on Sunday. That a toilet bowl was involved is perhaps fitting given the storm created on the night.
Cousins acknowledged he had some expertise when it comes to teammates using force to subdue another but, in his drug-addicted past, it had been him on the wrong end of the fist.
"He is a young, excitable, talented player and when something like that happens, I guess everyone that was there or was in involved has to ask themselves if they could have done more to prevent the situation from escalating," Cousins said yesterday.
"I got involved and forcibly tried to slow him up a little bit and I have found myself in a situation before where I have needed the same sort of thing." The 31-year-old, banned for drug abuse at West Coast and sacked by the club and then deregistered after a litany of bizarre misdemeanours, yesterday did not express any qualms about the latest sanction.
With his own history of substance abuse, Cousins admitted, perhaps he should have done more to prevent Connors -- who received an eight-week ban for provoking the trouble -- from hitting the drink, especially as the young Tiger was known, as he confessed on Monday, to have a problem with alcohol.
"I'm not sitting here saying it is unfair. I've got to take responsibility. It's disappointing that we have found ourselves in this situation and let the footy club down," Cousins said in his paid weekly slot with a Melbourne radio station.
"I think he (Connors) has put his hand up to say that he has a few things to work on. That is where the responsibility from the whole group comes in. We have got to make sure that he doesn't find himself in vulnerable situations. "Knowing Dan Connors and the sort of bloke that he is, he will go back and work hard and use this as motivation to get back in the side.
Richmond football operations manager Craig Cameron said yesterday Cousins was not "the main instigator", but he should have done more to prevent the incident.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/cousins-breaks-new-ground-in-bizarre-behaviour/story-e6frg7mf-1225853375908
