Ahead of the AFL Pre-season Draft in December 2008, Richmond Football Club approached the AFL Commission for approval to move injured senior player Graham Polak to its rookie list in order to obtain a second draft pick in the pre-season draft, which it said it would use to select Cousins. The AFL Commission had given approval to Essendon two years earlier to do similar with Adam Ramanauskas during his battle with cancer. The commission, with the support of the AFLPA and most of the clubs, denied Richmond's request. However, Richmond selected Cousins with its only Pre-season Draft selection (#6 overall) on 16 December. Following this Richmond received an influx of new club members and Cousins trained with the team the following day in front of a crowd of around 2,000. In Richmond's Round 1 game against Carlton on 26 March, Cousins strained his hamstring during the final quarter. He played a game with the Coburg Football Club in the Victorian Football League before returning to the AFL in Round 7 against Brisbane.