RICHMOND appears set to throw West Coast captain Ben Cousins a lifeline by selecting him in this morning's NAB AFL Pre-Season Draft.

Sources confirm that the Tigers have reached an eleventh-hour decision to take Cousins with their only pick in the draft. The AFL Commission ruled on Monday afternoon against giving the club a second selection.

On Monday evening the Tigers said they were 'highly unlikely' to take Cousins, but did not rule it out.

Last week, the Tigers petitioned the League to allow them to move injured defender Graham Polak to its rookie list, which would have given them an extra spot on their senior list – potentially for Cousins.

Polak was hit by a tram in June and, even though he returned to training last month, his recovery from head injuries will continue into 2009.

The Commission's Monday decision to knock back the request – after a report from the League's general manager of football operations Adrian Anderson and feedback from 14 of the other 15 clubs – has forced Richmond to stick to its initial plan of securing a young player with its pick.

Richmond football boss Craig Cameron said that the club had spoken with Cousins' manager Ricky Nixon to confirm it would have thrown the 30-year-old a lifeline if it had a second selection.

"There's still six live selections in the draft tomorrow," Cameron said from Punt Road.

"It's unlikely that the Richmond Football Club will select Ben at six. Our position on Ben on our selection, which is six in the pre-season draft, has been fairly well-documented."

But Cameron didn't rule Cousins out completely, suggesting that a final decision would be made at the death-knock and was subject to the draft choices of the five clubs picking before his.

He highlighted that Richmond was disappointed with the Commission's decision and that placing Polak on the rookie list, instead of the long-term injury list, would have given the 24-year-old the goal of playing at VFL level.

"This is a decision that was unexpected by us," he said. "We thought we put a pretty good case and it's our prerogative to take a deep breath and consider our position ... it is highly unlikely that we will select him (Cousins) tomorrow.

"It's fair to say the Richmond Football Club is disappointed with the decision by the AFL Commission in relation to our application for Graham Polak to be put on the rookie list.

"It's also fair to say that Graham Polak himself is really disappointed with the AFL Commission's decision today.

"I think they (the Commission) probably didn't have all of the information that they required and part of that may have been that they were forced to make a decision in such a short period of time, which is unfortunate."

Richmond president Gary March acknowledged on Friday that, with a sole selection, the club would stick to its youth policy and Cameron shares the view.

"We took a strategy to the board in September that we wanted to continue to rebuild our list with younger players," he said.

For Brownlow Medallist Cousins, his future at the elite level will be determined just a month after earning clearance to return from a 12-month exile.

He was overlooked in the November 29 national draft after some early interest from Collingwood, St Kilda and the Brisbane Lions.