Tiger fans came and their star recruit delivered
Greg Baum | February 27, 2009
IN 1984, Richmond crowds fell. So did the VFL's, by about the same number. Jack Hamilton, the supremo at the time, blamed it all on Tiger legend and league Hall of Famer Kevin Bartlett, who had retired at the end of the previous season after more than 400 games.
It was believable; even then, Richmond's following was thought to be passionate, but fickle. The Tigers have not even played in a grand final since.
Twenty-five years later, and at the Docklands stadium last night, it was possible to believe that redress is at hand, and poetically, again through the agency of one exceptional player. The twist is that Bartlett was, and remains, a teetotaller, Ben Cousins is notoriously a recovering drug addict.
Though the night was sticky and breathless, and the season not properly begun, 37,121 people poured in to see Richmond play — and lose to — Collingwood, but particularly to witness the latest episode in the protracted and oh-so-public remaking of Cousins, which has featured everything except the release of a video game. This was his first official appearance in his new stripes.
It was, and will continue to be, a frenzy. Last night, Richmond's fans outnumbered Collingwood's, a rarity.
Richmond coach Terry Wallace agreed to do live crosses to TV news bulletins. A betting agency put up odds on aspects of Cousins' performance: no goals, one or three, more than 13 possessions or fewer. This hyperactivity reflected
two longings, footy followers for the footy season, Richmond's for a saviour. "There he is," exclaimed one on the concourse as the Tigers warmed up in numberless guernseys half-an-hour before the game. "No, it's not," sighed his mate.
There were lessons in the first exposition. Cousins' first possession was a free kick on the 50-metre arc. Once, he would have blithely run around the man on the mark and kicked a goal, but not at 30, not with two-years-out-of-date hamstrings, not in a preseason game, scarcely the place for reckless heroics. His careful kick fell short.
Early, he botched a handball, also fumbled. But slowly, his timing and touch came back to him, and his running, too, like the lines of a long-forgotten song. The keepsake moment was in the second quarter when he slipped two players with one movement, a trademark manoeuvre. Here was the stirring Richmond folk had anticipated.
In the second half, Cousins played mostly on the ball, or as Richmond immortal Jack Dyer was wont to say, he didn't go where the ball ain't. He had 21 possessions, but did not kick a goal; the bookies won again.
Pleasingly, he ran the game out, at least until it was gone from Richmond's grasp. Defeat is anathema in football, but this one might have an upside for the Tigers if it trains the spotlight away from Cousins for a fortnight.
At the final siren, Cousins cast off his tapings, refused a TV interview and did not join in the communion of players, shaking only the hand of Collingwood's Leon Davis, then dissolving into the departing pack of Tigers. It was as if he was trying to make himself small again, no more than a footballer among footballers. It was how he began.
There were two other changes at Docklands last night, a countdown clock on the scoreboard and, true to this era of sporting promiscuity, a new name for the stadium, the fourth in little more than 10 years. The clock is likelier to last longer than the new name. As Cousins demonstrates, making a name is not easy, shaking one even tougher.
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