Controversial Richmond star Ben Cousins has announced he will retire from AFL football at the end of the season at a press conference on Tuesday morning.
After playing 238 games for West Coast, including the 2006 premiership, Cousins has added 30 more at Richmond in the past two seasons and will hang up his boots as a veteran of 270 games after the Tigers' final game of the season in Round 22 against Port Adelaide.
"When you start to question whether it is the right time (to retire) it probably is," Cousins said.
"I'm happy and proud of what I've achieved in footy and I think it is the right time for everybody involved."
He added that while it would have been easy to be selfish and play on because he believes the Tigers are set for success in coming seasons he also believes that getting himself up to play has been getting more difficult and he wanted to retire before he got a tap on the shoulder.
Cousins thanked his parents and three siblings as well as both the West Coast and Richmond Football Clubs for their support throughout his career.
The joker in him was never far the surface either with Cousins responding to a question about how he'd like to be remembered by saying: "Probably just as a bloke who never put a foot wrong."
The 32-year-old midfielder and confessed drug addict has played with the Tigers for two seasons, despite spending all of 2008 on the sidelines, suspended by the AFL for bringing the game into disrepute.
The AFL's move followed a horror year for Cousins in 2007 at West Coast, when the premiership player and former Eagles captain was never far from the headlines.
In March of that year, he had been suspended indefinitely by the club after failing to take a drugs test.
The suspension brought to light some well-kept secrets at the then reigning premiers that led to two inquiries taking place into drug taking within the Eagles playing group.
Cousins still returned to the field midway through 2007 and produced some inspirational performances, but his turbulent private life caught up with him once again in October of that year when his car was searched by police and he was found in possession of drugs.
It also came to light, early in 2010, that Cousins had visited Chris Mainwaring on October 1, 2007, just hours before the former Eagles star passed away from a seizure brought on by a drug overdose.
Cousins appeared to have resurrected his career at Richmond, despite the Tigers finishing near the bottom of the ladder last season.
But despite some solid form in 2010, particularly in recent weeks, his season has still been clouded somewhat by pre-season stays in hospital for stomach ailments and a mid-year brush with death when he was admitted to hospital once again, this time for mixing alcohol and a sleeping tablet on top of caffeine tablets earlier in the day.