Damning report into West Coast’s off-field culture exposed nine years after it was published

AN AFL legend says a new report on the West Coast Eagles wild drug culture has forever tainted the club’s 2006 premiership.

Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr celebrate after getting a goal PICTURE: JACKSON FLINDELL.

JUST one day after fallen West Coast premiership hero Ben Cousins again appeared in a Perth court, a decade of illicit drug use and other misdemeanours have been exposed in a previously unreleased AFL report published by News Corp.

WEST COAST SECRET REPORT

The report centres on one of the club’s most successful eras — from 2001 to 2007 when the Eagles made two grand finals and won a premiership spearheaded by 2005 Brownlow medallist Cousins.

Cousins, who spent two seasons with Richmond before retiring in 2010, on Monday pleaded guilty to 11 charges including stalking and drug possession. The Herald Sun has published the 2008 report by retired Victorian Supreme Court judge William Gillard which was not released by AFL bosses.

A culture of drug-taking was “well in place” by the end of 2003, the report found — with the Herald Sun reporting that cocaine, speed, ice, ecstasy and marijuana were abused by players.

LISTEN TO THE LATEST FOX FOOTY PODCAST BELOW, OR TAP HERE TO SUBSCRIBE IN ITUNES

It could be traced back to 2000, based on “success, arrogance (and) a belief that what the players did in their own time was their own business” as well as the “rock star status” players such as Cousins enjoyed in Perth. “Most of the players would have known by 2004 that some of the senior and better players were dabbling in illicit drugs,” Gillard found.

“Yet nothing was done. The players concerned were playing good football.”

Richmond legend Kevin Bartlett reacted to the news by declaring the 2006 flag was tainted forever.

“With what we’ve known in the past and observed with news stories over the years regarding troubled times for West Coast Eagles players, I’ve had an asterisk next to their 2006 premiership win,” Bartlett told SEN.

“After reading judge Gillard’s report today I’m taking away the asterisk and putting in a black line through that flag.”

PROBLEMS DATED BACK TO LATE 90S

The report even goes back as far as 1998, mentioning three players “observed behaving in a highly stimulated fashion despite not drinking alcohol”.

Gillard also wrote of the post-season trip to Las Vegas where Chad Fletcher spent four days in hospital after collapsing in a nightclub.

Fletcher, who pleaded guilty to cocaine offences in 2010 but avoided conviction, rarely spoke of the incident except to describe it as “life-changing” until last year, when he opened up an interview about his battle with depression.

“We all have emotional times throughout our careers and our lives and I guess it’s the challenge of how we get through them,” he told The Age in 2016.

“The support network was a big one for me with the footy club and my family and mates really helping me through it.”

The Gillard report said there was “evidence that some days before the incident, Fletcher in a highly-stimulated state, was showing players and others in a nightclub, an image on a digital camera of what appeared to be the drug ice”.

Gillard criticised “restrictions on testing and the confidentiality obligation which restricts a club dealing with a potential drug problem”.

The report is critical of coach John Worsfold — now at Essendon — and Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett, the Herald Sun reported.