The Afl Has Cut Cousins Adrift When It Should Be Throwing Him A Lifeline

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday November 24, 2007

Andrew Webster

WHEN Ben Cousins sat before the media on Monday, the backdrop featuring the AFL logo was swiftly removed. It seemed an extraordinary snubbing of the 2005 Brownlow medallist who had earlier been found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute.

This was presumably an AFL gesture, but a spokesperson assures that it was at the request of Cousins's manager, Ricky Nixon. "We just didn't think it was appropriate given he'd just received a 12-month ban from them," said a spokesman for Nixon's agency, Flying Start.

It's symbolic, nonetheless. The AFL has cut him adrift from the one thing he loves, the only life he knows. It might believe it's dangled a juicy carrot in front of this troubled figure but in reality it has taken the soft option. And potentially a dangerous one. Cousins's world has been torn asunder and there is grave concern about him putting it back together. A year is a long time to be unwanted.

The AFL has been agitating for an Andrew Johns-like public confession for weeks and now they've got it. They heard the words they've been wanting to hear: "Sorry" and "drug addiction".

Nevertheless, it was hard to buy the sincerity of Cousins's contrition. This didn't feel so much like a necessary purging of the soul as a public hanging. And you felt Cousins was only springing the trapdoor because he knew it was key to any comeback in the foreseeable future.

No player is bigger than the game but a brand should never mean more than one's life. That's the AFL's choice, of course. It owns the brand. Sponsors must be appeased, bums enticed onto seats, wallets prised open and Nathan Buckley figurines sold.

But it easily forgets that a franchise was built in the west on the back of the good-looking midfielder with the chiselled guns. It doesn't excuse his behaviour but it should ensure the next course of action isn't punitive. AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou says he will "monitor" Cousins's rehabilitation. The AFL should be doing everything within its powers to facilitate it. Cousins might be without a club but he shouldn't be without a game.

Cousins has been a problem, no question. Self-indulgent. Complacent. Reckless. A hard-running Ned Kelly clocking up the disposals, getting off the field, slipping into the snakeskin boots and then hunting down the next party, the next fix. At times, he has revelled in being this rebel. It's the mindset of someone caught in the vice of drug addiction. Nothing else matters but the good times. Alas, the party is over and here come the days, weeks, months when there is just nothing. An empty schedule can be the devil's playground. A week an eternity. Five days was reportedly long enough for Cousins to go on a cocaine binge in California that left his female suitor calling 911 as he trembled on the floor.

He needs to get busy but all he's known is a Sherrin and the smell of the grass and that must seem as far away as the lap of honour of the MCG last year, premiership trophy in hand. The one thing that defined him is no more.

Surely the innovative answer is allow him to remain in the warm bosom of a football club. Inclusion rather than seclusion. There's talk he could play in the lower leagues in Western Australia or Victoria and some wonder if it's his only chance.

But he doesn't have to play. He just needs to be in the footy environment, training his way back to the right path. To being clean.

It seemed to work last time, even if the comeback was devastatingly premature. Cousins can be an example to others and an everyday reminder to younger players, that even the most gifted ones fall from grace. And he can see in their eyes what attracted him to this game in the first place.

If he doesn't, what will Cousins do? Climb a mountain in the Himalayas and ponder what it all means? Save the children in Nigeria? Save the children in Kings Cross? Buy a PlayStation 3?

Whatever he decides, let's hope those he chooses to surround himself with are strong and he comes out the other end, cantering onto the arena, ready to play in the first round in March 2009. It would be some story, even by sport's standards.

But if not, let's hope Cousins is well aware that football will not always define his existence. He has a long way to go in this life. He's a work in progress, just like the rest of us.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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