Cousins has long way to go, say experts
Martin Boulton | January 7, 2009
RICHMOND fans are counting the days until round one, but if they're waiting to see Ben Cousins in full flight they might have to wait a while longer.
A day after coach Terry Wallace declared Cousins was four to six weeks behind the rest of the group, former Essendon high-performance coach John Quinn, who now runs his own fitness consultancy, said the ex-Eagle's "footy fitness" could take a further six to 12 weeks to peak.
"Ben Cousins would be fitter than 99 per cent of the population, but he's been out of the game for more than 12 months," Quinn told The Age.
"You can't be removed from the game for that long and then just come back in.
"If a track athlete retired for one year, people wouldn't expect that person to come back in and run at their normal level."
Quinn, who has watched Cousins' career closely, said the four-time best-and-fairest winner looked supremely fit, but needed to find his "tempo and rhythm" after such a long absence.
"It's one thing for him to be in the gym, then go for a 10-kilometre run the next day and a water session the day after, but it's a different thing to combine that with a skills session that might go for 45 minutes or two hours."
Another AFL fitness co-ordinator who preferred not to be named because of his affiliation with another club said there was no guarantee Cousins would return to his best. He said that even if Cousins did make his Richmond debut in round one, maintaining form and fitness during the season was a far greater challenge.
"It will be one of the great sporting achievements if he can come back and be anywhere near his best," the veteran fitness coach said.
"When you drop out of the competition for a year you lose that edge and it takes a while to get it back again … if you ever find it again.
"He's got to adjust to a different team and team structure, different coach, expectations, a different place to live — there's a lot of fatigue factors he has to manage.
"We like to think of sportsmen the way they were, so it's going to be a good story if it happens, a really good story of spirit and determination overcoming reality."
Cousins, who was sacked by West Coast and deregistered by the AFL for bringing the game into disrepute, has declared himself "clean" after having admitted to a drug problem.
On Monday, after his first training session since the Christmas break, Cousins looked on as his new teammates completed a time trial around the Tan.
Wallace later said that his high-profile recruit was "a long way away from peak fitness" and the expectation was on Cousins to "step up" over the pre-season. In his only media conference since arriving at Punt Road the 30-year-old said he was "behind the eight ball" in terms of pre-season fitness, but confident he could compete at the elite level.
"I've put a lot of time and work into my body and I'm confident it's going to hold up," he said.
"There's no guarantees in football.
"I could get injured like anybody else (but) I'll train exceptionally hard, leave no stone unturned and what happens after that is left up to the gods."
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/cousins-has-long-way-to-go/2009/01/06/1231004019912.html
