ANOTHER chapter in the Ben Cousins saga. Another accompanying round of hysteria, moralising and posturing. It's par for the course with any simple mention of the Brownlow medallist's name these days.

The mere suggestion of a Cousins comeback at AFL level — a possibility still the best part of a year away — seems to make most clubs and coaches break out in a cold sweat. As if being seen to even entertain the thought would be tantamount to turning to the dark side.

The name seems to induce plenty of vitriol among the punters as well, more served up after Cousins' interview on last week's Footy Show. In fact, any Cousins utterance since his drug problem became public fodder last year has drawn the same disapproving chants.

Where's the remorse? Too arrogant. Too cocksure. Why is he smiling? Surely it's just a matter of time before someone links Cousins to the spiralling price of petrol. Or, at the very least, cold pies at the footy.

Yes, Cousins is a recovering drug addict. If he were an everyday Joe, that would see him, at worst, patronised a little, more probably offered some encouraging pats on the back about getting back on track. As it would if he were a celebrity in another field, exhibit A being country musician Keith Urban. Why should Cousins' job as a footballer render him any less worthy of sympathy?

Yes, Cousins could be construed as arrogant. Well, bugger me dumplings, there's a shock! Isn't that a quality, we're forever reminded, that helps make the very best sportsmen what they are on the field?

To whom does Cousins owe his remorse? His family and friends, obviously. His former West Coast officials and teammates who stood by him, probably. At a pinch, maybe those Eagles' supporters who have had to watch their club's reputation damaged and its on-field fortunes disintegrate without him.

Everyone else, frankly, can go jump. It's really none of their business, especially not the new cult of tut-tutting social commentators who make a living kicking the heads of those who have made some big mistakes, which, of course, they never have.

In a purely football context, the latest race of particular clubs to distance themselves from the prospect of Cousins wearing their colours has been interesting.

Two of the most notable dissenters to that view have been Brisbane coach Leigh Matthews and Hawthorn's Alastair Clarkson, two men who have both felt the sting of public opprobrium.

For Matthews, a football legend, it came after he decked Geelong's Neville Bruns behind play at Princes Park back in 1985. In Clarkson the North Melbourne player's case, it was in the infamous "Battle of Britain" two years later, when he broke the jaw of young Carlton defender Ian Aitken.

Different circumstances to Cousins, clearly, but a similar impact. A whole world lining up to give them a whack.

Perhaps that's what it takes to feel true empathy with a public figure with the weight of a world's scorn on his shoulders. You might see a very different public response from some of the clubs currently saying "no" on the comeback question should that scorn abate even just a little over the next few months.

Because it's hard to believe that privately those same clubs haven't, salary cap considerations aside, considered it very seriously indeed.

The man is a super athlete, extraordinarily fit, an endurance runner rather than contact player, which has helped preserve a body that has been through 13 seasons, and now with a whole new set of motivations.

Not that Cousins hasn't already proved plenty.

That was a point driven home by the launch last Saturday of this week's Age Top 50 series, where a panel of even older football luminaries voted Cousins and Robert Harvey the only men still able to play AFL football in their list.

Ahead of the likes of Chris Judd. And alongside names the stature of Ablett, Carey, Lockett, Whitten, Reynolds and Coleman.

That's some rap. As even the hard-to-impress Matthews said of Cousins last week: "A wonderful, wonderful player, everyone knows he's been a wonderful, wonderful player, and therefore even at 30 or 31 he'd still be a good player in any team."

In fact, Cousins turns 30 today. We suspect we know what he'll be wishing for. And so will a few of us. Some of us can forgive.

And some of us simply want to see one of the best footballers of the past 50-odd years strutting his stuff on an AFL stage again while there's still time.