Eagles year of living dangerously
In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, Dean Cox takes us deep in the Eagles' nest.
I would love a dollar for every time I have been asked what actually transpired during that trip to Las Vegas in October 2006.
The club sent assistant coaches Tony (Boobie) Micale and Neil Ross, with match-committee member Tim Gepp and fitness guru Glenn Stewart, to oversee the end-of-season excursion, and it was just as well.
From the moment the rest of the boys checked in to our Las Vegas hotel, we didn’t stop.
In addition to our rooms at the MGM Grand, we hired a suite at the nearby Mandalay Bay where we would converge and kickstart our nights of partying with a fines session and drinking games, invariably followed by our increasing fondness for wrestling one another.
There is no doubt that some guys partied harder and longer than others, which brings us to the oft-asked question of drugs.
Team photo of the 2006 premiership winners. Front (left): Chad Fletcher, Ben Cousins, Andrew Embley, Chris Judd (captain), John Worsfold (coach), Steven Armstrong, Drew Banfield, Daniel Chick, Tyson Stenglein, Daniel Kerr. Middle: David Wirrpanda, Michael Braun, Adam Selwood, Quinten Lynch, Dean Cox, Mark Seaby, Sam Butler, Beau Waters, Ashley Hansen. Back: Darren Glass, Rowan Jones, Adam Hunter, Brett Jones.
Did West Coast players take drugs in Las Vegas in 2006? The truth is, probably some of them did.
Definitely not all, though. The trip has been described as a five-day drug binge, but that certainly wasn’t the case.
Our third night started like the previous two but would have a different ending. After a recovery day, the players gathered for a feed and a few beers.
On this night about a dozen of us went to Pure Nightclub at Caesars Palace. A haunt of many celebrities, including the Hilton sisters, it was a trademark Las Vegas after-hours establishment: big, bold and beautiful.
It’s fair to say it had any nightspot in Perth covered. Making the most of the occasion, we organised a booth inside the club and lived it up with bottle service like the rich and famous.
Dean Cox holds aloft the trophy after the AFL Grand Final match between the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 30, 2006. Picture: AFL Photos/GSP
Less than a fortnight earlier, we had been straining every sinew to claim the ultimate prize in Australian Rules football before more than 97,000 supporters at the MCG and many millions more watching on television throughout Australia, and now here we were, virtually anonymous in one of the more upscale clubs in Las Vegas, sitting on pristine white couches and necking bottles of vodka like rock stars at an after-party.
Some guys weren’t regular vodka drinkers, but they were skolling from the bottle, having shots at regular intervals and drinking at an unsustainable pace.
Inevitably, given the volume of alcohol consumed, it was only a matter of time before a bouncer came over and told us to tone it down.
No problem. We agreed to turn the dial left, but after another hour of drinking, Chad Fletcher was struggling, sliding off his seat, and as often as we picked him up to put him back on it, he’d slide off again.
We pointed out to Fletch that it might be best if he went back to the hotel and he agreed. We walked him outside and Tyson Stenglein volunteered to take him home, grabbing a cab and heading back down the Strip to the MGM Grand.
Later, when I was in the outside area talking with Hunts and taking in the lights of the Strip, I checked my pockets and found I had a missed call from Boobie. When I rang him back he told me that shortly after arriving back at the hotel, Fletch had collapsed and needed to be rushed to a local hospital.
The concern in Boobie’s voice was obvious. Hunts and I immediately returned to the hotel; we weren’t aware of just how sick Fletch was, so although we were alarmed, we probably weren’t in the right frame of mind to have a complete grasp on the seriousness of the situation.
Clearly, though, he was in a bad way, and fortunately he received excellent medical care to steer him out of the woods. The incident dampened the mood of the trip, which was coming to an end anyway, but it wouldn’t be the last we would hear of it.
Shortly after touching down in Perth, it became apparent a shit storm was brewing around Fletch’s plight and how he had come to find himself in a Las Vegas hospital.
Chad Fletcher, Beau Waters and Andrew Embley celebrate after the AFL Grand Final match in 2006. Picture: AFL Photos/GSP
It raised eyebrows at AFL headquarters and football clubs throughout the country, chiefly ours.
Trevor Nisbett and Woosha were extremely disappointed with our behaviour and the reports of excessive partying, not just overseas but in Australia. News was filtering through weekly on an incident here, an incident there — all involving Eagles players.
Both Nizzy and Woosha knew the behaviour had escalated to a dangerous level, and it wasn’t any surprise that our antics were very much front and centre at a two-day strategic planning meeting in Broome organised by the board in November.
Woosha informed the directors that there was a real issue with the squad that needed to be addressed. As players we knew we were testing the patience of key people at the club but, perhaps more alarmingly, we didn’t show sufficient respect to care.
The assurances it wouldn’t happen again were just lip service.
Cuz might not have been in America, but he didn’t need the bright lights of Las Vegas to discover trouble. In Melbourne for a wedding just prior to the start of the club’s pre-season, our former skipper had a bender and fell asleep near Crown Casino, leading to his arrest and a stint in a cell.
With his issues from earlier in the year and with so much heat on the club, this was the worst possible timing. Not that there is ever a good time to be processed by the constabulary.
The fury around the club from senior officials, namely Nizzy and football department staff, was predictable and understandable.
Because it was Cuz, it was massive news. But there is no denying that, with everything that had taken place since the grand final, the last thing the club needed was one of its headline acts spending a night behind bars.
As soon as I heard what had transpired, even though Cuz was still officially on holidays, I braced myself for the backlash. By his own admission, Cuz found idle time difficult to negotiate. Therefore, the off-season was always a dangerous period.
Ben Cousins at the West Coast Eagles training session at Subiaco Oval in March 2006. File picture: The West Australian
With the structure of football and the requirements of training, meetings and preparation from week to week, he initially found it difficult to transgress.
But as his addiction intensified, it became evident he was a young man with a real problem. The summer of 2006–07 was a period when his life spiralled out of control.
But he was not alone. The boys were partying hard on Friday nights, which would then flow over into Saturdays and Saturday nights into Sundays.
I was also enjoying the trappings that came with being a West Coast Eagle, a premiership-winning West Coast Eagle no less.
There was no shortage of parties, functions or race meetings at Ascot to attend, with my local hotel, the Windsor, frequented regularly, along with its very accommodating bottle shop. Guys I hadn’t met previously were keen to have a beer and talk shop, and be seen in the company of an Eagle, at any time of the day or night.
And there were girls equally interested in making my acquaintance and that of other single West Coast players. I was only too happy to oblige.
Clearly there were occasions where I overindulged and should have pulled up far earlier than I did during that period. But you live and you learn and I now know that I couldn’t have sustained a career at the elite level for as long as I did if I continued on that path.
Normally, such a blatant disregard for professional standards would compromise the ability to train properly.
Save for the odd occasion, though, one thing that wasn’t in question through the chaos of our pre-seasons of 2006 and 2007 was our ability to train to the point of exhaustion during the week.
Cuz was one who used to tear up the training track, but the sight of him running with freedom and a clear mind became less frequent towards the end of 2006. Cuz wasn’t healthy when pre-season started and things only got worse as the weeks went by.
He saw the weekends as a time to cut loose, and an Eagles squad on a Monday minus Ben Cousins became increasingly prevalent.
On some occasions when he did show up at the club on a Monday, he was in a frame of mind best described as scrambled. There were other instances where the explanation for his absence was that he was “sick”.
This was okay until feedback started to come in that he had been partying hard only twenty-four hours earlier.
Ben Cousins looks on as the West Coast Eagles celebrate their AFL Grand Final win at Forest Place October 3, 2006 in Perth, Australia. The West Coast Eagles beat the Sydney Swans in the AFL Grand Final which was played in Melbourne on September 30, 2006. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images
As a leadership group we weren’t without our faults either, but like the match committee and senior officials, we were keen to get to the bottom of it. However, it was hard to nail down what was actually transpiring, and we couldn’t make a hard-and-fast ruling on a player’s career without all of the facts and then some.
As the pre-season progressed, Cuz’s drug use clearly got out of hand. Some days he would come in bouncing off the walls, other times he struggled to stand up. It was terribly sad to see, and a bad example for the younger players.
Many of them idolised Cuz for his achievements and rightly so, but they were now being exposed to something normally reserved for pay TV.
His plight deteriorated to such an extent that training and playing football became secondary.
First and foremost, it was about helping Cuz in any way possible. But you can’t help people who won’t help themselves and Cuz was in denial, even though it was apparent to everyone that he had a problem, that he wasn’t the same Ben Cousins we had come to know and love.
He was encouraged by the club to seek professional help, but he elected not to. Having a meaningful conversation with him was difficult. Early in his career, Cuz would say what he was thinking.
Now he was cold and distant and showed no interest in engaging with the players and coaches.
A tumultuous off-season reached its flashpoint over a forty-eight-hour period on 17–19 March 2006. We played the Western Bulldogs in a practice match at Subiaco Oval on the Saturday afternoon, during which Cuz was typically influential.
That night Michael Braun held his engagement party, which was attended by most current and some former Eagles players, coaches and club officials.
Cuz was conspicuous by his absence. The following morning we had our jumper presentation and family day at Subiaco Oval. It is a day young and old players enjoy each year.
Young because they are presented to the club’s supporters and handed a jumper they hope to wear sooner rather than later; old because you just don’t tire of watching fresh-faced kids and recruits sporting a smile like a split watermelon when they are presented with their guernsey.
But this day was like no other. Cuz rocked up to the club in a terrible state; he could hardly put a sentence together and laboured through a routine recovery run around Kitchener Park he would have performed a thousand times previously.
The guys, young and old, were shocked that he would present in such a state knowing full well he was going to be seen in public.
It became obvious to just about everyone who saw him that something wasn’t right.
If there was a positive, it was that some fans would have been too young to comprehend what they had witnessed. But there was no denying this was the concrete proof needed by the club and everyone keen to put a stop to the messy saga.
Ben Cousins and Chris Judd celebrate victory after the AFL Grand Final match between the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 30, 2006 in Melbourne, Australia. Picture: Mark Dadswell/Getty Images
The Sunday drama seemingly over, the players arrived at the club for a Monday morning session and it was no great surprise that Cuz didn’t attend.
Others, myself included, just shook our heads in disbelief. Players are often removed from the events that go on behind the scenes at a football club, but it was clear something was bubbling.
There were more people in and around the club than normal and there was a host of conversations going on between coaches, football department staff and senior club officials that, from a distance, appeared far more meaningful than you would expect in late March, just under a fortnight out from a season-opening match.
Daniel Chick and Embers had been involved in a dispute on the Sunday over the wellbeing of Cuz and, from the moment Chicky arrived at the club early in the week, it quickly became apparent a confrontation was brewing between the two.
Both were still seething at the events of the Sunday, prompting an arrangement for the pair to put on the boxing gloves and get in the ring to sort out their differences.
As fate would have it, they crossed paths well before the gloves had been donned and got stuck in, requiring them to be separated by other players.
Daniel Chick at training in September 2006. File picture: The West Australian
They were quickly summoned to Woosha’s office, where their differences were put to one side. But the drama continued. AFL drug testers arrived to take samples from both Cuz and Chicky, further evidence that the club was off the rails.
Cuz’s inability to attend two training sessions on the Monday was the final straw. The leadership group was consulted, as was the match committee, and then the club’s board, armed with recommendations, suspended him indefinitely.
The suspension was announced by Dalton Gooding on the Tuesday morning, with a massive media contingent on hand for the delivery of the most stunning news to the outside world.
I, along with many other senior players, mused at how we had got to this stage. Our penchant for hard partying pre-and post-2006 premiership triumph had well and truly caught up with us.
The club’s favourite son, our spiritual leader, had been banished.
It wasn’t just Cuz in the crosshairs of Gooding, Nizzy, Woosha and the leadership group. Kerry faced two assault charges over the summer, one at a party in January and a second involving a taxi driver following a big night out. And the same week Cuz was suspended from the club, the ABC released an audio tape of Kerry discussing drugs, in particular ketamine, with a convicted drug dealer.
The conversation was from a 2003 Victoria Police recording, but it was now out in the open. When it rains, it pours. It was certainly hard to dismiss the suggestion that West Coast was a club tarnished by a drug-fuelled environment when a former captain and Brownlow medallist was suspended and another player of prominence was captured on tape talking explicitly about drugs and their side effects.
It is little wonder that at the height of the hysteria Woosha, with his trusty lieutenant Peter Sumich sitting nearby, called players one by one into his office and asked them point blank if they had taken or were taking drugs.
He then said, “If you are, we need you to stop or you don’t have a future at this club.”
I don’t know the exact number of players who answered in the affirmative when asked whether they had experimented with drugs, but I suspect it was in the double figures.
West Coast Eagles coaching staff, John Worsfold and Peter Sumich pictured in 2005. File picture: The West Australian
As much as there were no repercussions from Woosha and Suma when the dreaded “yes” was the reply, the disappointment on their faces, and the fact that they had been forced to enquire about our drug habits, were impossible to overlook.
Clearly a large portion of the squad had let them both down, especially Woosha, who had been so quick to back his players and trust us all to do what the majority of professional footballers do — behave in a professional manner.
With Cuz now outside the four walls, we endeavoured to concentrate as best we could on our grand-final rematch against Sydney at ANZ Stadium in the opening round.
It was nigh on impossible to do so, though, as the media hounded us over the whereabouts of Cuz, who had gone into hiding.
Even if I had known where he was, I wouldn’t have divulged his location. We had received feedback that he was intent on getting professional help, most likely overseas.
It was the best news I had heard in a long time.
Looking back now and armed with the benefit of hindsight, I wonder often what might have happened had I and some of the other boys taken a stand early in the piece, rather than being swept up in the celebrations.
Dean Cox played his last game at Patersons Stadium on August. Picture: Michael Wilson/The West Australian, 19th August 2014.
Iron Eagle by Dean Cox is published by Pan Macmillan, RRP $34.99
Available from September 30
Official book launch
Wednesday, October 1
Breakfast, 7am (for 7.30am) to 9am Hyatt Regency Perth
Tickets: Breakfast $95
Corporate tables of 10: $950
Info: 9482 3820 or events@wanews.com.au
Bookings: thewest.com/au/events
