Wayne Carey yes, Ben Cousins no ADELAIDE say a youth policy that dates back to the drafting of Wayne Carey rules them out of the Ben Cousins race. The Crows are still counting the cost of taking the Kangaroos premiership captain at the end of 2002 after 12 months out of the game. While the All-Australian was serviceable in his two seasons at West Lakes, he fell short of recapturing the form which had him widely regarded as the most damaging player in the AFL. Gaining Cousins at his best presents itself as a salivating option but, like Carey - who began to struggle with soft tissue injuries - the former West Coast skipper has missed a year of action. You would love to have him as a player. You know how good a player he can be when he's at his best," Adelaide operations manager John Reid said. But we learned a bit from the Carey one, I reckon. It was an exercise we gave ourselves a half-mark for. We did a good debrief on that and one of the things we really noticed, when a player's been out (of the game for a year) at that age the other injuries like the hammies and drivers (start to occur). Wayne had those and started to get niggles in areas he never had before. You've been out of that playing mode so they're the injuries that start to worry you. That alone will strike him (Cousins) off for us. As hard as it was to resist the temptation of drafting Cousins, Reid said recruiting another mature-age player wasn't a priority. "With our youth policy and where we're heading he doesn't fit at all," Reid told Radio FiveAA. He's a fantastic player in full flight and if he gets back playing good footy, whoever gets him will get a good player. Port Adelaide defender Troy Chaplin expressed the same respect for the hard-running midfielder but doubted Port would follow through with their mild interest in Cousins. It's an interesting one. I don't think we're going to take him, which is fair enough," Chaplin said. He's a quality player but I'm not sure that's the path we're going down. I think we've got eight picks in the draft this year and with such a young list and an opportunity to draft young guys before the Gold Coast and the West Sydney teams come in, it's probably not the path that we are going down. But if he ended up coming here, I'm sure the boys would be arms open like we do with any other player.