Preserved here for posterior is Ben Cousins' textbook backflip.
Monday:
I'VE done enough pre-scripted apologies to last a lifetime. This isn't going to be one of them.
The footage of me raising the finger at the change room camera was filmed an hour and three quarters before the game.
I wasn't angry. I wasn't frustrated. It wasn't a message to the world.
I wasn't smiling, I know that, but it was a form of acting. A bit of fun that some people have taken out of context.
Wednesday:
"I met with the club this morning and have accepted their fine," Cousins said.
"I apologised for raising my finger and explained that it was not a gesture I ever thought would go to air.
"I hadn't seen the footage until Monday afternoon and wasn't aware of my facial expression. Once I viewed the footage I realised why the public, the AFL and the Richmond Football Club were offended by my actions."
No word on whether it was a pre-scripted apology.
Elsewhere, the Tiges' assistant coach David King reveals that Cousins needs to concentrate not to make a dick of himself:
"Ben's been great, and this was just a lapse of concentration."
Fair point. Yesterday, I was walking down the street concentrating on not pulling my pants down.
Last word - paraphrased - to the Cousins camp:
"The changing rooms are the inner sanctum and are sacrosanct."
Actually, second last. Greg Baum puts Channel Ten in the frame:
The real villain is Channel Ten
IF BEN Cousins is to hang, at least let it be for a hanging offence. Cousins' gesture in flipping the bird, so-called, to an unmanned television camera in the Subiaco changerooms on Saturday night has gone to all the usual courts: the AFL, his club's leadership group, the media and public opinion.
I think a tea cup small enough for this storm would barely hold a mouthful.
Yet it is a bloody expensive one with all the hype a non-issue gets. Which is exactly what one would expect from a story created by a media organisation.
Posted by: Bruce | 04 June 2009 at 13:24
If I was Benny, would I have given the finger to the camera? Probably not.
If I was Channel Ten, would I have shown it? Probably.
If I was Mr Perpetually Outraged, would I have exhibited performance enhanced levels of dudgeon? Naturally.
All boxes ticked.
Posted by: Tony | 04 June 2009 at 13:56
Of course, Ten won't tell us how many incidents like this, involving other well known players, never went to air. Cousins is simply instant ratings and controversy now. He's a marked man. He was also dumb.
Posted by: Rob de Santos | 04 June 2009 at 14:08
Obviously Ben should have flipped the bird at the camera whilst naked. Then they wouldn't have shown it.
Posted by: m0nty | 04 June 2009 at 14:22
If a bird gets flipped in a forest and no one is around to see it, does it make a sound?
Know what I'm sayin'?
Posted by: Big Ramifications | 04 June 2009 at 20:22
How many birds can flip on the head of a pin?
What is the sound of one bird flipping?
Ask not for whom the bird flips, it flips for thee...,
I'm out.
Posted by: Random | 05 June 2009 at 04:47
I agree, the media are rats.
Over here I am prepared to buy every single person in the sports department of the "West" if they can manage to go one whole week without some Ben Cousins angle on a footy story.
I only buy the "West" if I have broken glass or a dead cat to wrap up, but almost evertime I do, there's some pathetic third rate attempt to make a story out of this person.
Posted by: os | 11 June 2009 at 15:55
"Over here I am prepared to buy every single person .... an icecream if they can ..."
use preview you dork.
Posted by: os | 11 June 2009 at 15:56