The art of Ben Cousins
Rohan Connolly | June 13, 2009
ABOUT four months ago, when Ben Cousins couldn't break wind, much less enjoy a bite of lunch, without it making front-page news, today shaped as a huge chapter in football's favourite soap opera.
Richmond v West Coast. Cousins up against his old team for the first time. Time to drag out once more the tales of drug abuse, arrests and drama that surrounded the Brownlow medallist's departure from the Eagles.
Plenty of speculation, revelations and recollections. Well, that was the theory.
The reality leading up to tonight's clash between the Tigers and Eagles, Cousins' new club and old, has been somewhat more subdued, some would say even muted.
There's no room on the front pages for Cousins just now, the earth-shattering furore that is the Gordon Ramsay v Tracy Grimshaw spat far too important.
Even in the sports pages, what talk there has been about tonight's game has centred instead around Richmond's axing of five senior players, and the debuts of young Nick Naitanui and Tyrone Vickery.
Cousins, incredible as it seems, is playing second fiddle. That's Cousins the melodramatic lead, anyway. Cousins the footballer, meanwhile, is going about the business of continuing his AFL career with an increasing impact.
After tearing his hamstring in that much-documented round-one debut against Carlton and old Eagles' cohort Chris Judd, tonight's game will be his fifth of Richmond's past six, the only one missed a compulsory lay-off after fracturing the metacarpal bone in his left hand during the opening moments of the Tigers' narrow round-eight loss to Port Adelaide.
The returns in that time have been good. Four 20-plus disposal games, at an average of 23 touches, despite Cousins never spending more than 60 per cent of them on the ground. But it's what's coming along with those numbers that is beginning to have a marked impact at Punt Road on Cousins' teammates and coaches.
"When he speaks, everyone listens," says Richmond assistant coach David King. "He's a very knowledgeable guy, got a great footy intellect, and that's often overlooked with all the 'bad boy' stuff. What he has to say is always accurate."
Caretaker Richmond coach Jade Rawlings, however, appeared of a different view yesterday. "I won't get drawn into next year, but he has been a major acquisition to this footy club," he said.
"The way that he supports his teammates, the way that he approaches his training, has been fantastic.
"When I coached him at Coburg, he actually distracted me because he was walking around slapping his teammates' backs, encouraging them - he had no ego, no 'I'm just getting my game time up'. I've watched him on the bench at Richmond games - he wants to play for Richmond and win games of footy. I couldn't respect him any more for that."
It's becoming a recurring theme at Richmond when it comes to Ben Cousins the footballer. And with Ben Cousins the soap opera for now seemingly on the sidelines, perhaps it's a view the rest of the football world may finally have a chance to become acquainted with as well.
Richmond midfield coach Wayne Campbell, trying to mould the likes of Brett Deledio, Nathan Foley and Trent Cotchin into a cohesive on-ball unit, is the man with whom Cousins has worked closest. He describes the former West Coast captain as a de facto assistant.
"It's been an education for me as well, I reckon," he says. "I'm not saying he's my right-hand man, but there are lots of times where I'll look to him to say something that I want to say. They're a really good group, and they'll listen to what I say, but when you've got someone like him, a successful player who's played in a premiership, saying the same thing, it just has more weight."
Richmond hasn't been surprised that, since returning from the five-week lay-off that followed his hamstring tear, Cousins has found plenty of the football. That's what he's always done.
But having done their due diligence about the pros and cons of taking on not only a first-class midfielder but the welter of baggage that came with him, it's fair to say the Tigers have been genuinely and pleasantly surprised at what else Cousins has had to offer.
They'd been told, by some of Cousins' closest associates, that while he could appear aloof and unwilling to give much of himself, it was on game day that his true leadership qualities would shine through. Richmond's coaches say they now appreciate more fully what that meant.
"He's been in an environment where it was all about team, and where there were lots of very good players who just wanted to help each other out, and he voices that very well," says Campbell. "And then he plays it out on the ground better than anyone I've seen. On game day, he just goes to another level with his want to win and his team play."
It is offensive-minded midfielder Foley and Deledio in particular who have benefited the most from the knowledge Cousins has passed on.
"It's about teaching that if we can become a better midfield group as a collective, we will become a better team, and that makes you a better player individually," says Campbell. "Rather than going the other way and trying to be better individually to make the collective better, he's about making the collective better first."
It's that ethic that was being acknowledged when West Coast premiership captain Chris Judd famously invited his predecessor as skipper up on to the victory dais before the other players when the Eagles beat Sydney in the 2006 grand final.
"Ben is a great leader around the footy club and on the field," Eagles coach John Worsfold said in the aftermath of that triumph.
"At different times, certainly since I've been coaching, almost single-handedly on match day, he's taken it upon himself to make sure the team's won the game and got over the line. I thought he deserved the opportunity to get up there, that fraction ahead of the rest of the group, to share it with Chris."
It was a gesture that seemed at odds with the stereotype the Victorian football world had observed from afar — the cocky, self-delighted football star who, first and foremost, looked after No. 1.
By the time Cousins arrived at Punt Road last December, so big had the legend become that it took some effort even for his new colleagues to separate reality from fantasy. But having put preconceptions on hold, Campbell also knows now what the Eagles were getting at.
And a seemingly innocuous incident from just Cousins' second game in yellow-and-black, against the Brisbane Lions in round seven, he says, demonstrates the reality perfectly.
"We were under the pump, they'd got on top, late in the third quarter, and he laid this big block on for Foley at a stoppage," Campbell recalls.
"Nothing really came of it, but it said a lot. When you're under the pump, players can go back into their shell, and it was him saying: 'I don't care what the score is, I don't care if they've kicked the last four, I'm going to keep doing the same thing'.
"His want for the team to win is fantastic, and that illustrated the point quite clearly."
Not that the more immediately visible examples of Cousins' work on-field aren't just as potent. The relentless run. The ball use. And his capacity to create for teammates.
"He takes the heat and he puts teammates into space," says King. "His creative run and his handball stuff is just amazing. That's one thing that has really stood out to everyone here. You just go: 'F---! How does he always have so much time?'
"There were a couple of moments across half-back in the Fremantle game where he was just able to draw the traffic and get a handball off and put a couple of players into space. And when he gets the ball, we get the next possession. Guaranteed."
A midfielder with a recent catalogue of injury and turning 31 in 2½ weeks wouldn't ordinarily occupy too much time in opposition team meetings. But Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade, whose side made short work of Richmond last week, concedes the Brownlow medallist still prompted plenty of discussion, and concern, in the Bulldog camp.
The Dogs matched Cousins with the ever-reliable Daniel Cross, but were forced to change tack when Cousins began to get away in the second quarter, winning a succession of clearances and proving pivotal to the Tigers' flying comeback in which they briefly hit the front.
"He's shown he's not that far off his best," Eade says. "He's still got that burst of speed and he's a great decision maker and user.
"I don't think he's dropped away too much from what he used to be. He's still a class act. I think he's still got something to offer them."
Away from game day, as well, Cousins is starting to challenge some preconceptions. Younger Tigers have noted his more vocal presence around the change rooms over the past few weeks. Campbell says there's no doubt his leading midfield charge is starting to feel a lot more comfortable in his surroundings.
"Any person who comes into a club, regardless of whether they're 18 or 30 with a premiership under their belt, is going to feel their way. No one comes in and just goes bang like that," he says.
"He's got this mystique to him, but he's put in an amazing effort to get to know them, and he gives them all the same amount of time, and they've responded, they really like having him around. I think he's made a real effort with the young guys to make sure they don't see him as this mythical character."
Which is the obvious challenge for any outsider to Punt Road who may end up winning the Richmond coaching job for 2010.
The need for generational change is obvious, and is perhaps already under way in the dumping for tonight's game of Joel Bowden, Troy Simmonds, Kayne Pettifer, Jordan McMahon and Mark Coughlan, leaving Cousins the only player older than 30 in the line-up.
One former Richmond coach turned commentator, Robert Walls, doesn't see the value in the club extending its relationship with Cousins beyond round 22. "I wouldn't keep him," he says. "But then I wouldn't have got him to the club in the first place.
"There's been nothing I've seen this year that would indicate that you'd keep him. Look, he plays OK, he gets the ball, but in the situation they're in, I just don't think you'd have a bloke of that age and particularly with the amount of time and effort that's needed to keep him. I just don't think it's worth it."
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