Santa left a gifted, drug-addled and enormously controversial athlete named Ben Cousins under the tree of every Richmond Tigers fan today. Its reverberations are still being felt as Tigers fans celebrate, AFL old-timers ring their hands over the state of the game and the Melbourne media cry 'Hallelujah!' for such a magnetic story during the year's slowest news cycle.
Cousins has been the object of obsessive media speculation for weeks: Would any club gamble on a high-profile, high-risk player whose drug use got him suspended for the 2008 season? A limited number of clubs with draft picks for the 2009 season have been passing on him like roseless suitors on a reality TV dating show. Cousins-mania erupted in Tigerland when word leaked that Richmond was showing last-minute interest. Not surprising, as dangling an established AFL superstar like Cousins in front of long-suffering Tigers fans is like waving jugs of tainted tap water before hoards penned for years in the desert: Far from perfect, but good enough to quench a brutal thirst.
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