A fluid ideology or an inconvenient truth?
Damian Barrett | December 12, 2008
THE day is Thursday, November 27, two days before the AFL national draft.
The topic is Ben Cousins and on the phone is Craig Cameron, the head of the Richmond football department.
Several times, the Herald Sun asks Cameron whether the Tigers are considering recruiting the ex-Eagle.
Each time, the answer is a resounding "no". The inference is: absolutely no chance.
The reason the questions are asked is simple and valid.
The previous evening, during a question-and-answer forum at a Tom Hafey Club dinner arranged by Richmond Football Club at Punt Rd, Cameron had been bombarded by a provocative Kevin Sheedy - a recently appointed Richmond ambassador - on the very same topic.
Cameron can not understand why the Herald Sun is interested in an exchange between himself and the four-time premiership coach at a club function.
Told Sheedy's views on footy's main topics - particularly Cousins-to-Richmond - were newsworthy, Cameron opted for "no comment", saying he was refusing to buy into the Cousins circus publicly simply because he didn't feel right to offer opinion on a debate in which his club would definitely not be playing a role.
The Herald Sun opted to write an article focused on Sheedy's probing of Cameron about Cousins at the function, describing a witness's account of being able to "hear a pin drop" during the questioning.
It reported how the former Essendon coach had challenged Cameron to answer: "Why not take a punt on Cousins?"
Fast forward to Wednesday, December 10, and the Cousins-to-Richmond debate takes on a very real feel.
Clearly, Richmond's ideology on Cousins has taken a drastic turn between those dates.
At most clubs, ideology is set in stone, but at Richmond, an outsider is entitled to wonder whether ideology is adhered to only until a loophole in rookie-list rules can be exposed.
In other words, Cousins "not being the right mix" for Richmond one day is Cousins "being the right mix" a couple of weeks later, provided the AFL Commission can be convinced that Graham Polak should be listed as a rookie next year.
Which would, of course, provide the Tigers with a second pick at Tuesday's pre-season draft and thus give them access to Cousins.
Cameron is believed to be pretty close to Ricky Nixon, Cousins' manager, and the Herald Sun has been told discussions between the two about the drug-addicted former West Coast player have been held for "at least a few weeks, if not a lot longer".
Cousins has been available to a new club for 12 months.
Collingwood spent the best part of six of those months looking into him, before reeling away at a hundred miles an hour.
St Kilda took five months to look into him before saying a loud "no".
The Brisbane Lions were nowhere near as thorough, then pulled out suddenly when they was made aware of some damning information.
And now the Tigers are doing some homework that should have been done a long, long time before this week.
There was the almost laughable situation yesterday - five days before the pre-season draft - of at least one Richmond director trying to contact a board member of another club that had spent significant time and money on investigating Cousins, wanting to get the lowdown on the state of the 2005 Brownlow medallist.
No matter what the outcome with Cousins, this is all oh so Richmond.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24787806-11088,00.html
