RICHMOND fans might be counting the days until round one, but if they're waiting to see new recruit Ben Cousins in full flight they might have to wait a while longer.

Coach Terry Wallace says Cousins is four to six weeks behind the rest of the group, but former Essendon high-performance coach John Quinn believes the ex-Eagles' "footy fitness" could take a further six to 12 weeks to peak.

"Ben Cousins would be fitter than 99 per cent of the population, but he' been out of the game for more than 12 months," Quinn said. "You can't be removed from the game for that long and then just come back in.

"If a track athlete retired for one year, people wouldn't expect that person to come back in and run at their normal level."

Quinn, who has watched Cousins's career closely, said the four-time best and fairest winner looked supremely fit but needed to find his "tempo and rhythm" after such a long absence.

"It's one thing for him to be in the gym, then go for a 10km run the next day and a water session the day after, but it's a different thing to combine that with a skills session that might go for 45 minutes or two hours."

Another AFL fitness co-ordinator, who did not want to be named, said there were no guarantees that Cousins could return to his best and even if he did make his Richmond debut in round one, keeping form and fitness would be a greater challenge.

"It will be one of the great sporting achievements if he can come back and be anywhere near his best," the veteran fitness coach said. "When you drop out of the competition for a year you lose that edge and it takes a while to get it back again … if you ever find it again.

"He's got to adjust to a different team and team structure, different coach, expectations, a different place to live - there's a lot of fatigue factors he has to manage. We like to think of sportsmen they way they were, so it's going to be a good story if it happens, a really good story of spirit and determination overcoming reality."

Cousins, who was sacked by West Coast and delisted by the AFL for bringing the game into disrepute, has declared himself "clean" after earlier admitting to a drug problem. On Monday, at his first training session since the Christmas break, the six-time All-Australian looked on as his new teammates completed a time trial around Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens.

Wallace later said his recruit was "a long way away from peak fitness" and the expectation was on Cousins to "step up" over the pre-season. In his only press conference since arriving at Punt Road, the 30-year-old said he was "behind the eight ball" in terms of fitness but confident he could still compete.

"I've put a lot of time and work into my body and I'm confident it's going to hold up," he said. "There's no guarantees in football, I could get injured like any body else [but] I'll train exceptionally hard, leave no stone unturned, and what happens after that is left up to the gods."