Ben Cousins is available to play for Richmond in Thursday night’s AFL opener against Carlton but thinks the selectors might not pick him.
Speaking publicly for the first time this year, Ben told Nova’s Hughesy and Kate the Tigers’ match committee could decide to give him a run in the VFL before he plays again at AFL level.
"I’m going to be available, I’m trying to convince the match committee to pick me," Cousins said.
"I’d like to think I could play but it's just whether the match committee think I’ve done enough.
“I had only played one of the pre-season games and was expected to play in our last pre-season hit out and that’s when I got crook so it didn’t come at a very good time. So they just have to weigh it all up and see.
“We’ve got a fair bit of depth there and some young guys coming through that could probably do the job quite comfortably and (I would) get another hit out under my belt before playing.”
Cousins has had two stints in Melbourne’s Epworth Hospital with stomach pains this month, most recently on 15 March. The Richmond doctor said at the time Ben was “in the care of a Gastro Enterologist”.
Ben put it more simply on Tuesday.
“I was crook there for a while,” he said.
“I thought the missus was trying to poison me. I’m getting a few test results back on the food to see if she was poisoning me!
“It wasn’t an instant thing… like after a day or two I couldn’t get away from the pain.
“I was really in a lot of discomfort, struggling.”
- Daniel Bryant
Comments