BEN Cousins was a bright-eyed 23-year-old in 2001 when his then coach at the West Coast Eagles, Ken Judge, received a hot tip from a Perth detective.
Judge was told that the midfielder and two prominent teammates were likely to be using illicit drugs.
Judge told the club's administrators and waited for the fallout. But there wasn't any, despite reports the same year that some Eagles players had been caught on secretly recorded police tapes arranging to pick up "the ironing" from drug dealer Robert William Morris.
Those players were suspected by police of being among thousands of small-time, recreational drug users across Perth and were never named publicly or charged with any offence.
Morris was a different matter; he was sentenced in 2002 to six years' jail after pleading guilty to possessing cocaine with intent to sell and supply, possessing amphetamines with intent to sell or supply and manufacturing a prohibited drug.
After Judge raised the alarm, the club conducted an internal investigation which bordered on farce; not surprisingly, it found nothing and did not include an interview with Judge himself - who had since been sacked over the team's dismal 2002 season.
Cousins, by then captain, continued his match-winning brilliance and the club continued to turn a blind eye to the champion midfielder's partying ways.
But West Coast's critics say that period was a wasted opportunity to help Cousins avoid the wrong path and stamp out what was clearly an emerging drug problem within the club.
And worse, Cousins came to believe that his glorious on-field performances -- which culminated in his 2005 Brownlow medal -- could temper mistakes and poor decisions he made off the field.
By July last year, Cousins' obsessive dedication to training was on the wane. This February -- three months into pre-season preparation -- Cousins had missed training sessions or shown up unfit to train. He was clearly going off the rails.
While being mentored by former West Coast champion and party boy Chris Mainwaring, Cousins was summoned to a meeting with club administrators and coach John Worsfold.
When asked to explain his actions, Cousins defiantly shot back, asking why the club cared what he did off the field if he was such a good player on it.
But it was a speech that Worsfold recognised, almost word-for-word, as one that Mainwaring had made to his captain Mick Malthouse years earlier when he was being chastised for heavy drinking and late nights.
Worsfold, who had been a teetotaller captain, was unimpressed with Cousins for his attitude and with Mainwaring for apparently planting those words in the wayward players' mind.
Eight months later, Cousins' career is in tatters and Mainwaring is dead from a suspected cocktail of drugs believed to have included cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis. Cousins was with Mainwaring just hours before he died on October 1, and has been the subject of intense scrutiny since.
Detectives have questioned Cousins about the last few hours of his mate's life.
Perth businessman John Kizon, whose Melbourne underworld connections caused problems for Cousins when the pair were seen socialising in 2002, believes Cousins was this week the victim of a vendetta.
"I know the streets, let's not kid ourselves, and the word on the street is that they had been monitoring him," Kizon said.
"Nobody gets pulled over by the Organised Crime Squad for a driver's licence check."
Kizon claimed his contact with Cousins has been minimal but that others have tried to make out the pair are great friends "to put pressure on the football club and pressure on him (Cousins)".
"Whatever he's done, wrong or right, he's a guy who's a beautiful person," he said.
Cousins' supporters on talkback radio this week have claimed he was picked on, but few players have been unlucky enough to have been dogged by so much trouble for so long.
In September 2002, he punched teammate Daniel Kerr in the face while at the Eagles' best-and-fairest celebrations.
In a separate incident later that night, Cousins broke his arm falling down stairs at a nightclub.
In May 2005, Cousins and teammate Michael Gardiner angered the club when they refused to tell police what they knew about a shooting at a Perth nightclub involving Coffin Cheater Troy Mercanti, a prominent member of WA's notorious outlaw motorcycle gang.
In February last year, Cousins was on his way home from a friend's wedding when he pulled up less than 50m from a booze bus in the Perth suburb of Applecross and ran away. The next day, he told traffic police that he bolted because he needed to go to the toilet.
The unedifying court spectacle cost Cousins $900 and the captaincy. He admitted then to "errors of judgment".
Within a year, Cousins' "substance abuse" was revealed and he was apologising to his fans for disappointing them. But the 29-year-old was keen to display his resilience mid-season when he lifted his shirt to display a large tattoo proclaiming "Such is Life".
It is the phrase Cousins used to journalists when his return to football was postponed by injury, and it is perhaps best known as the last words of the outlaw idolised by bikies, Ned Kelly.
Subiaco tattooist Mike E said Cousins chose the phrase himself and asked him to design lettering that was a hybrid of "old English and tribal".
"He was really happy with it and so was I," Mr E told The Weekend Australian. Mr E said he had no idea why Cousins chose the phrase, or whether it was inspired by the 1903 Australian novel of the same name.
Tom Collins' classic explores whether people's lives are determined by their choices or by circumstances beyond their control. The last words read: "Such is life, my fellow-mummers just like a poor player that bluffs and feints his hour upon the stage, and then cheapens down to mere nonentity."
The Australian
Ben Cousins, the former West Coast Eagles AFL team captain has been forcedly removed from the West Coast Eagles and is 'no longer a registered player', according to an AFL spokesperson. 

Cousins was pulled over by police on Tuesday for erratic driving. Police charged the player with one drug charge and failing to provide a blood test. The drug charge was dropped today but the blood test charge still lingers, after police had found the drug Valium solely in pill form - the drug is only illegal in the liquid form (for injection).

Cousins had already been temporarily suspended by the West Coast Eagles prior to the 2007 season but has never actually tested positive to illicit drugs. Cousins then underwent rehabilitation in the USA in early 2007 and agreed to return to the club under a number of conditions, including a 'zero-tolerance clause', according to The Sunday Times this morning.

West Coast still stands in its decision to sack Cousins.