And now, a follow-up on the ongoing saga in Perth…

For those of you in the land down under who made bets on Ben Cousins getting over his little drug problem and getting back on the field by May, start saving up now. Cousins is in denial worse than Britney Spears.

The 28-year-old, who has been suspended indefinitely by the Eagles, has continued to behave erratically and also has resisted attempts by the club to make a public statement about the severity of his health crisis.

Although the Eagles hierarchy has made it clear to Cousins that he will not be allowed back to the club until he fully accepts his addiction to the methamphetamine “ice”, and seeks rehabilitation, the 2005 Brownlow medallist as recently as the weekend remained determined he could beat his drug problem without full-time medical and psychiatric help.

Damn, he’s hooked on meth? That’s an Australian episode of Playmakers. He’ll be having flashbacks to his booze bus chase that will have him running from his dog twice a week by the time he’s 40.

He may not be the only one, either. It appears that another West Coast Eagle player, Daniel Kerr, was caught on tape four years ago talking to a convicted drug dealer. You can listen to ABC Sport’s audio report here, but to summarize, at one point, the drug dealer said something about Cousins having a “bag of fucking horse chaffe,” and Kerr sounded positively giddy. “The stakes have been raised!”, he proclaimed.

“Horse chaffe” refers to Ketamine, a strong sedative given to horses and television doctors that Peter King likes. Just to be clear: Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr were taking horse sedatives for recreational purposes. Seriously, how are these men still alive? how are the Eagles going to put this massive distraction behind them before their Friday clash with the Sydney Swans?

More importantly, though, how fast can you Aussies put a torrent of that Swans-Eagles match online? BitTorrent is pretty much the only way for me to watch AFL games in America this year, so I’m counting on you footy fans to hook me up. Don’t let me down, okay?

(Big thanks to the vainglorious duo over at With Leather for coming up with the “North Perth Forty” tagline for this story. I wish I had thought of that.)