Coaching hopefuls to rule on Ben Cousins
Stephen Rielly | July 14, 2009 | The Australian
BEN Cousins is unlikely to know for several months whether he has a future at Richmond next year.
The Tigers intend to put Cousins's name, and those of other senior players with doubts on their careers, to the last-stage candidates for the senior coaching position before making their call on the 2005 Brownlow medallist.
Applications for the coaching position that was vacated by Terry Wallace last month closed less than a fortnight ago, with preliminary interviews yet to begin, let alone major presentations and the last round of interviews for the short-listed candidates.
Cousins played his best game for the Tigers on the weekend, a 35-possession effort against Carlton that encouragingly prompted Richmond football operations manager Craig Cameron to declare yesterday: "He's clearly getting better."
It was a performance of assurance and powerful running, far from the days earlier in the season when Richmond's punt on the former West Coast captain appeared to be a star-crossed bet.
Cousins tore a hamstring in the opening round and later broke a bone in a hand, a combination that sidelined him for six matches and suggested that, physically, he could not get back to what he had been. On Saturday, glimpses of the Cousins of old were seen even though he carried a cold into the game.
He is now averaging almost 24 possessions a game from nine matches.
"We haven't opened the batting on Ben, not yet," said Cameron on the issue of a new contract.
"To be honest, I don't think we will until the process of appointing a coach has been taken a few steps further. Ben's future is, ultimately, a list management decision but I don't think it will hurt to get a feel from the potential new coaches.
"It's something we will probably do with all of the older players, get a sense of how they are seen by the people who could be coaching the club next year.
"As I said, the decisions on those players won't be anyone's but the club's, or of list management, but it certainly won't hurt to know what thoughts others might have."
Cousins, who turned 31 last month, is one of five 30-somethings on Richmond's list who are far from certain to be at Punt Rd under a new coach next year.
Matthew Richardson is the oldest and yet safest of them, a 34-year-old who has missed much of the season with a serious hamstring injury but one who was third in the 2008 best and fairest count, third in the Brownlow medal and is still in possession of many of his athletic gifts.
Richardson is due to make his return in the next four weeks and has said he would like to play on next year, an ambition that won't be hurt by his standing as the club's sole great of the past two decades.
The understanding painfully arrived at this year that the Tigers are a long way from contention does not stand to be so kind, though, to Joel Bowden, Nathan Brown and Troy Simmonds, who turned 31 yesterday.
The Tigers, by turning to youth in the weeks since Wallace's exit, have indicated that they won't keep all of them and may, in fact, release them all.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25777561-2722,00.html
