Football's off-season looms as Cousins' biggest challenge yetCaroline Wilson | August 30, 2009
BEN COUSINS walked from Subiaco Oval two nights ago into the unknown. Football's favourite anti-hero has never stopped facing challenges since the AFL cautiously reopened the door to his playing career late last year, but surely the coming weeks and months loom as his greatest.
If it seemed Cousins was reluctant on Friday night to make that journey from his safest haven, the playing arena, and into temptation, there was a practical reason for it.
Channel Seven and the AFL had given Cousins' documentary team permission to film at the game to complete the project that proved to be the footballer's lifeline during his journey back into the competition.
Completing and selling the Cousins story is now in the hands of entertainment entrepreneur Michael Gudinski and the Tigers must still approve its release but the documentary, while dear to Cousins' heart and bank balance, remains the least of his worries.
Another no-brainer appears to be a new contract, which several days ago received a public stamp of approval from new coach Damien Hardwick, who described him as one of the Tigers' best players.
Cousins, if he does not transgress in the off-season, will be back next year on a much bigger one-year contract. The club, however, will review its entire media policy and, specifically, relationships between its players and media organisations.
It would be fair to say that Cousins' newspaper and radio agreements will be looked at by a coach who has made no attempt to hide his discomfort with the media. Although the previously aloof Cousins' weekly appearances on Nova have lifted the veil of mystery around him, off-the-cuff comments such as the one last week that compared the Lance Franklin bump to a $5000 drug hit have not been missed by the AFL's administration.
The AFL, too, will continue to drug test Cousins throughout the holiday period. He remains one-out from the competition's customary illegal drugs policy and the view of the player, club and his management is the best way for Cousins to stay out of trouble is to remain in his football season routine.
It is fair to say that Cousins' already dangerous life could have headed in a far worse direction had he not returned to the only job he truly knows and one in which he produces brilliant performances.
So if the move to Tigerland has worked for Cousins and the AFL, has it worked for Richmond?
Certainly, he will figure prominently in the Tigers' best and fairest count and should receive double-figure Brownlow votes. It is not a indictment on Richmond to say that Cousins is its best player - certainly with Matthew Richardson out injured - because he was West Coast's best or second-best as well.
The Tigers made mistakes with Cousins early, as he did with them. He was taken on the run, lacked a full pre-season and arrived at the club in a state of high anxiety. He remained so for much of the year but his demeanour arriving in Perth several days ago was said to be transformed from the tense and hypersensitive player who arrived back home to play Fremantle earlier in the year and who upset the AFL and his club by raising a finger.
He will accept a new deal from Richmond and probably agree to suspend certain media commitments if asked, but whether he can remain drug-free is a question not even he could probably answer now.
The facts remain that Cousins played some good football for Richmond, was unable to lift the club in any meaningful way and, to be slightly cruel, perhaps cost the Tigers a priority pick.
But if Cousins is to be a test case for the AFL, he will be seen as a player, a flawed human being and brilliant footballer who came to a club not quite ready to handle him.
Cousins' issues occasionally caused divisions at the club, divisions between the media and the AFL Players Association and even divisions within his own management group.
But any examination of his rehabilitation should record that Richmond is far better equipped now to handle Cousins than it was when it took him on late last year and Cousins and his freakish football ability remain alive and well and truly kicking. That cannot be a bad thing.
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